Executive Summary Corruption is a “normal” phenomenon all over the world judging from its perceived extent among the 175 countries included in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in 2014. What are the reasons for the “normalisation” of corruption today? What can political leaders and governments do to minimise the adverse consequences of normalised corruption? To address these questions, this paper contends that the worldwide normalisation of corruption reflects the limitations of the major anti-corruption approaches in addressing its causes. It highlights the four success stories of Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, China, Botswana and Georgia, to show that normalised corruption can be curbed if there is the political will and capacity to do so. Finally, drawing lessons from these cases, this paper recommends five suggestions for enhancing the anti-corruption strategies of those countries concerned with ameliorating the consequences of normalised corruption for their citizens. This paper is organised into five sections. In the first section, corruption is defined as “the misuse of public or private power, office or authority for private benefit.” Corruption is normalised when it is a way of life rather than a fact of life, and includes both petty or “survival” corrupt practices by poorly paid low-ranking civil servants as well as grand corruption offences involving huge amounts of money and assets committed by “politically exposed persons” including political leaders, senior bureaucrats, business persons and community leaders. The second section begins by analysing the CPI 2014 rankings and scores of 175 countries by region to show that the 43 European countries fare best with an average CPI score of 57.90. By contrast, the other four regions have unsatisfactory average CPI scores below 50: 44.83 for the Americas; 40.26 for the Middle East; 39.64 for the Asia Pacific; and 32.06 for Africa. The second manifestation of the normalisation of corruption is the prevalence of corruption among political parties in 52 countries, followed by the police in 36 countries, and the judiciary in 21 countries, according to Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2013. Governments have combated corruption in their countries by relying on compliance (rule-based) or integrity approaches, or a combination of both approaches. The compliance approach relies on laws and regulations, codes of ethics, and anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) to control corruption. However, in spite of the reliance on codes of ethics, there is no evidence that they have actually enhanced the ethical standards of civil servants, especially when these codes are ignored or not enforced in many countries. ACAs are formed by governments to curb corruption by enforcing the anti-corruption laws. The creation of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in Singapore in October 1952 was followed by the establishment of the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) in Hong Kong SAR, China in February 1974. The effectiveness of the CPIB and ICAC has resulted in the proliferation of nearly 150 ACAs today in many countries. Unlike the compliance approach, which depends on surveillance and penalties to enforce the anti-corruption laws, the integrity approach relies on internal control measures like training, education and the integrity of the individual to curb unethical behaviour. 5

However, ethics training cannot prevent civil servants from misbehaving themselves if they wish to do so. Furthermore, the integrity approach is difficult to implement and it also takes a long time for civil servants to inculcate ethical values. In addition to codes of ethics and ACAs, there are community-based anti-corruption programmes which provide governments with relevant information on the extent of “retail” corruption in public agencies. Samuel Paul’s pioneering use of report cards to collect citizen feedback on the delivery of public services in Bangalore, India revealed that even the poor had to pay bribes to public officials and that the amount of bribes paid varied depending on the agency. The use of report cards led to other bottom-up anti-corruption initiatives, including the well-known ipaidabribe.com website, which was initiated in August 2010 in Bangalore to enable citizens in India to provide details on the amount of bribes paid and to whom they paid these bribes. The third section provides examples and data on these five causes of normalised corruption: low salaries of civil servants; red tape; low probability of detecting and punishing corrupt offenders; cultural values and practices; and the difficult governance environment of the fragile states. First, the “starvation wages” of civil servants in many countries around the world force them to resort to corruption as a coping strategy to enable them to support their families. Second, red tape and excessive regulations provide poorly paid civil servants with the excuse to accept bribes or “speed money” from business persons and the public to expedite their applications for licences or other requests. Third, civil servants and other individuals are not deterred from engaging in corrupt activities if they are unlikely to be caught and punished. Fourth, culture contributes to corruption because gift-giving and the importance of the extended family and family ties encourage individuals to give or receive bribes as well as nepotism. Fifth, the difficult governance environment of fragile countries makes it difficult for their governments to combat corruption effectively because of their high levels of corruption, political instability, government ineffectiveness, and low level of rule of law. The fourth section describes the three patterns of corruption control with relevant country examples. Examples of countries using the first pattern include Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, which do not rely on ACAs but on institutions like the Ombudsman, Chancellor of Justice, Public Accounts Committee, Auditor-General’s Office, and the Serious Fraud Office to combat corruption effectively. The second pattern of relying on a single ACA to enforce the anti-corruption laws is practiced in many countries because of the effectiveness of Singapore’s CPIB and ICAC of Hong Kong SAR, China, as mentioned earlier. The third pattern refers to the reliance on multiple ACAs in such countries as Canada, China, India, Philippines, and Vietnam to curb corruption. However, this pattern is ineffective in minimising corruption when the many ACAs compete for limited resources, personnel and recognition, instead of cooperating with each other. The importance of political will in ensuring effective corruption control is reflected in the four success stories of Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, China, Botswana and Georgia. According to Transparency International’s CPI in 2014, Singapore and Hong Kong SAR, China are among the least corrupt countries in the Asia Pacific region, Botswana is the least corrupt African country, and Georgia is the least corrupt Eastern European country. The 6

analysis of their success in combating corruption shows that their anti-corruption reforms were triggered by particular events or corruption scandals. In Singapore, the CPIB was formed in October 1952 as a result of the investigation of the Opium Hijacking scandal in October 1951. ICAC of Hong Kong SAR, China was created in February 1974 following the escape of corruption suspect Peter Godber to the United Kingdom in June 1973 to avoid arrest. The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) was established in September 1994 in Botswana because of the exposure of the four corruption scandals in 1991-1993. In Georgia, the Rose Revolution in November 2003 led to the election of President Mikheil Saakashvili in January 2004 and the implementation of comprehensive anti-corruption reforms. In these four countries, the critical factor responsible for their success in minimising corruption is the strong political will of their political leaders, which was clearly demonstrated in the establishment of single, well-funded, and adequately staffed ACAs like the CPIB in Singapore, the ICAC in Hong Kong SAR, China, and the DCEC in Botswana. In case of Georgia, what made the difference were President Saakashvili’s anti-corruption reforms, and not the ineffective Anti-Corruption Bureau established by his predecessor, President Eduard Shevardnadze. The concluding section shows that the failure of anti-corruption strategies is reflected in the high level of perceived corruption in many countries, with 44 African countries having CPI scores below 50 in 2014, followed by 24 Asia-Pacific countries, 21 American countries, and 16 countries each in Europe and the Middle East. The failure of these countries to minimise corruption is the result of their lack of political will and capacity as well as their reluctance to address the causes of corruption. As “one-size-fits-all” approaches cannot capture adequately the contextual differences among the countries around the world, country-specific anti-corruption approaches, which take into account their policy contexts and local circumstances, should be adopted instead by their policy makers. Combating corruption is not easy and success cannot be attained overnight. Nevertheless, the examples of Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, China, Botswana and Georgia illustrate that, with strong political will and capacity, normalised corruption can be minimised. What can the policy makers in those countries afflicted with normalised corruption do if they wish to change the status quo? There are five measures which these policy makers can initiate to enhance the effectiveness of the anti-corruption measures in their countries. First, policy makers must demonstrate their political will by overcoming their reluctance to address the causes of corruption in their countries. Many governments have failed to address the causes of corruption not only because it is a difficult task but also to protect the vested interests of corrupt stakeholders by not initiating appropriate reforms. As the causes of normalised corruption are well known, policy makers can no longer plead ignorance to disguise their lack of political will and unwillingness to make a difference by tackling the causes of corruption in their countries. Second, as “too many cooks spoil the broth,” policy makers should avoid relying on ineffective multiple ACAs, which compete instead of cooperating with each other to curb 7

corruption. The continued reliance on this ineffective strategy for many years in some countries is not only irrational but reflects their governments’ unwillingness to combat corruption effectively. The experiences of Denmark, Finland and New Zealand show that it is possible to minimise corruption without relying on a single ACA if there are other institutions to maintain good governance. Following the success of Singapore’s CPIB and ICAC of Hong Kong SAR, China, governments in many countries have established single ACAs to curb corruption. However, the record of these ACAs is mixed, with more examples of failure than success because of the lack of political will and their limited capacity, funding and operational autonomy. Those dedicated ACAs which focus on anti-corruption functions exclusively and are adequately funded and staffed, with operational autonomy, are more effective than those ACAs which perform both corruption and non-corruption-related functions, are inadequately funded and staffed, and lack operational autonomy. In other words, it is pointless for a government to establish a single ACA if the ACA is not provided with the necessary budget, personnel, and independence to function effectively. Third, as not all the personnel and public agencies in countries where corruption is normalised are corrupt, policy makers can combat corruption by identifying those “islands of development” or “pockets of effectiveness” of those public agencies which have overcome the odds and succeeded in minimising corruption. Michael Roll’s research in Nigeria shows that there are some public agencies which have remained incorrupt. The existence of these “pockets of effectiveness” not only demonstrates that corruption can be curbed but also encourages other public agencies in countries with normalised corruption to follow their example. Fourth, the sectoral approach to combating corruption should be strengthened by the policy makers in countries with normalised corruption. This approach was initiated by the United States Agency for International Development and supported by the World Bank, which has provided a “road-map approach” to track corruption vulnerabilities at the sector level. This pragmatic approach enables policy makers to focus their limited resources and efforts on those most corrupt sectors and demonstrates that corruption in other sectors can also be tackled effectively. Fifth, as there are few success stories in minimising corruption, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and Transparency International should develop a strategic partnership to identify the best practices and “pockets of effectiveness” in corruption control and facilitate their transfer and adaptation to those countries with normalised corruption by organising regular training workshops for the personnel of their ACAs. In the final analysis, the raison d’être for anti-corruption programmes in all countries is threefold: (1) to enhance the heroic efforts of the “integrity warriors” in exposing corruption scandals; (2) to undermine the activities of corrupt political leaders and civil servants; and (3) to protect and ameliorate the sufferings of poor citizens, who are the innocent victims of corruption. Indeed, if corrupt leaders, public officials, and citizens in all countries are not deterred from committing corrupt offences and are not punished impartially for their misdeeds, these corrupt individuals are allowed “to get away with it” and encourage others to behave corruptly with impunity. 8

I. Introduction Corruption is not a new phenomenon as the discovery in Baoji City, China in November 2006 of two bronze urns with inscriptions of 111 ancient Chinese characters each, narrated the story of how a noble man, Zhou Sheng, had bribed the parents of a legal investigator to avoid being charged for appropriating farmland and slaves in 873 B.C.1 However, since then corruption has become a “normal” phenomenon all over the world, especially after the end of the Cold War and the advent of globalisation. Professor Henry Mintzberg has described the recent Volkswagen corruption as a syndrome and a “blatant” example of the “level of sheer corruption that transcends the automobile industry” in Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries.”2 The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has defined corruption as “the misuse of public power, office or authority for private benefit – through bribery, extortion, influence peddling, nepotism, fraud, speed money or embezzlement.”3 In view of the increasing importance of private sector corruption in many countries, this paper extends the scope of UNDP’s public-office-centred definition4 and defines corruption as “the misuse of public or private power, office or authority for private benefit.”5 In analysing the normalisation of corruption, it is important to distinguish between corruption as a fact of life or a way of life. This distinction was introduced in 1981 by the eminent scholar, Gerald Caiden, who describes corruption as a way of life in a country when it is rampant, systemic, and is the norm rather than the exception. However, corruption is a fact of life in a country when corruption offences are the exception rather than the rule, and are examples of individual rather than systemic corruption.6 When corruption is normalised in a country, it is optimal for individuals to be corrupt and “corrupt behaviour becomes the equilibrium behaviour or the social norm.”7 India’s former Central Vigilance Commissioner, N. Vittal, has described the normalised corruption in India as “a persistent disease” which has affected many sectors over the years and contributed to “a multiple organ failure in governance.”8 In addition to the seven forms of corruption identified in the UNDP’s definition, it is necessary to distinguish between petty corruption and grand corruption. Grand corruption offences are committed by political leaders, senior civil servants, business persons and 1

community leaders, involving “large, international bribes and ‘hidden’ overseas bank accounts.”9 Moody-Stuart defines grand corruption as “the misuse of public power by heads of state, ministers and top officials for private, pecuniary profit.”10 In other words, grand corruption refers to corruption by “politically exposed persons” (PEPs), who are individuals “entrusted with a prominent public function”11 involving huge sums of money and assets. In Mexico, grand corruption is described as corrupción salvaje (savage corruption) which enriches a few leaders who transfer the money to foreign banks. 12 For example, former Mexican president José López Portillo (1976-1982), was estimated to have enriched himself by between US$1 and US$3 billion.13 Kenya’s former president, Daniel arap Moi, and his cronies were estimated to have looted US$3 billion after 24 years in power.14 A recent example of grand corruption is the confiscation by China’s procuratorates in several provinces of the massive amount of US$16.05 billion in cash and assets from the many residences of Zhou Yongkang, former Minister of Public Security (2002-2007) and Member of the Politburo Standing Committee (2007-2012).15 By contrast, petty or “survival” corruption is committed by poorly paid low-ranking civil servants, who demand bribes from business persons and citizens to expedite their applications for permits or licences or other requests. The late Samuel Paul and Manubhai Shah found that the poor people living in slums in many Indian cities were not spared and had to pay bribes or “speed money” to local officials for “getting a service or solving a problem with a public agency.” The average amount of bribes paid per transaction varied from Rs 850 (US$28) for Bangalore to Rs 350 (US$12) for Pune.16 Even though the amount of bribes in petty corruption is usually small, the UNDP contends that petty corruption is a “misnomer” because it affects “the daily lives of a very large number of people” especially the poor.17 In many African countries, “corruption runs the spectrum from low- to highbrow,” from the street cops to judges.18 Bribery in Nigeria, for example, has “spread from top to bottom, from politicians to tax collectors, customs officers, policemen, postal clerks and dispensary assistants.”19

As shown in the next section, corruption is normalised in many countries around the world in spite of the various anti-corruption reforms initiated after the Second World War. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it contends that the worldwide normalisation of corruption reflects the ineffectiveness of most current anti-corruption efforts which have failed to address the causes of corruption. Second, this paper highlights four success stories to show that normalised corruption can be minimised if there is the political will and capacity to do so. Finally, drawing lessons from these successful anti-corruption experiences, this paper makes five suggestions for enhancing anti-corruption strategies for those countries concerned with ameliorating the consequences of normalised corruption for their citizens. II. Major Anti-Corruption Approaches and their Limitations Appendix 1 provides details of the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2014 rankings and scores for the 175 countries by region. An analysis of the average CPI score by region in Table 1 shows that Europe fares best with 57.90, followed by the Americas (44.83), Middle East (40.26), Asia Pacific (39.64) and Africa (32.06). Thus, with the exception of Europe, the other four regions have average CPI scores below 50. Table 1: Highest, Lowest and Average CPI 2014 Scores by Region Region

This score is calculated by adding the CPI scores of the countries in each region and dividing the total score by the number of countries. Source: Compiled from the “Corruption Perceptions Index 2014 Results” available at www. transparency.org/cpi2014/results (accessed 14 November 2015).

The normalisation of corruption around the world is also reflected in Table 2, which identifies political parties as the most corrupt institution in 52 countries, with the highest incidence in 23 European countries. Political parties in Greece and Italy have the highest scores of 4.6 and 4.5, respectively (see Table A2.3 in Appendix 2). The police are the most corrupt institution in 17 African countries, 12 Asia-Pacific countries, five American countries, and two Middle Eastern countries. The highest scores for the police are in Kenya and Liberia (4.8) and Kyrgyzstan and Mexico (4.6) (see Tables A2.1, A2.2, and A2.5 in Appendix 2). The judiciary is the most corrupt institution in 11 European countries and 10 countries across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and the Americas. The incidence of corruption in parliament, medical and health, business, media, religious bodies, education system and among public officials is much lower, with no cases at all for the military or non-governmental organisations. 11

Three important trends from Table 2 should be highlighted. The first trend is that no region in the world, including the developed countries in Western Europe and North America, is immune from corruption. For example, the state of New Jersey in the United States has been labelled “the Soprano State” because of its “super-corrupt atmosphere” where “nothing is sacred or beyond conversion to a patronage pit.”20 Second, even though the police are not identified as the most corrupt institution in any European country, the score for the police in Russia is 4.5, which is second to the top score of 4.6 for public officials/civil servants (see Table A2.3 in Appendix 2). The third trend is that, in spite of the increasing prevalence of private sector corruption in many countries, the business/private sector is only perceived as the most corrupt institution in these four countries: Algeria (4.1), Lebanon (3.8), Fiji (3.6), and Norway (3.3) (see Tables A.2.2, A2.3 and A2.4 in Appendix 2). Table 2: Most Corrupt Institutions by Region in 2013 Institution Political parties Police Judiciary Parliament Public officials Medical & health Business Media Religious bodies Education system Military Nongovernmental Organisations

The high level of perceived corruption and unsatisfactory average CPI scores for many countries indicate that the anti-corruption efforts initiated to date have not been as effective as expected. Before analysing their limitations, it is necessary to provide a brief description of these anti-corruption approaches. In Tackling Corruption, Transforming Lives, the UNDP recommends an agenda for action which combines both “crushing corruption from the top” with bottom-up anti-corruption initiatives by citizens, civil society organisations (CSOs) and the media.21 As corruption is normalised in many countries, it is not surprising that their governments have initiated many anti-corruption measures, including the implementation of anti-corruption laws by anti-corruption agencies (ACAs).

Compliance and integrity approaches The top-down anti-corruption approaches adopted by governments are either compliance or integrity approaches or a combination of both. The compliance or rule-based approach relies on external controls like laws and regulations and ACAs to control unethical behaviour. By contrast, the integrity approach relies on internal controls like training, education and the integrity of the individual to curb unethical behaviour.22 A rule-based approach “involves administrative procedures, rules and regulations which are designed to check the behaviour of public servants, to limit their discretion and to apply sanctions if they act corruptly or improperly.”23 On the other hand, a value-based approach ensures that “public servants acquire an ethical framework, either by osmosis through socialisation in the organisation or by specific training, which will enable them to arrive at appropriate, morallyTable 3: Compliance and Integrity Approaches24 Dimension Assumption

Objective

Personal discretion

Methods

Evaluation

Compliance Approach Individuals cannot be trusted and are guided by material selfinterest. To prevent criminal misconduct by enforcing laws and regulations, codes of conduct, and codes of ethics. Limited for public officials to protect organisation’s integrity and reduce opportunities for corruption because public officials prefer certainty in making decisions. External controls, education of rules and codes of conduct, auditing, monitoring and controls. Focus on legality of actions and not cost effective but properly formulated and administered regulations can reduce corruption and minimise its consequences.

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Integrity Approach Individuals can be trusted and are guided by material self-interest, values, ideals and peers. To encourage responsible conduct by internalising organisational norms and values through ethics training and education. Public officials have personal discretion to make moral choices without undermining the laws or organisation’s rules and regulations because rules cannot cover all situations. Internal controls, ethics education and training, communication, ethical culture and climate. Focus on legitimacy of actions and cost effective because of reduced time and cost in drafting, monitoring and implementing regulations.

acceptable decisions.”25 Table 3 summarises the major differences between the compliance and integrity approaches. The two important tools employed by governments to guide and control the behaviour of public officials are codes of conduct or ethics and ACAs. Codes of ethics are introduced to provide these officials with an indication of the desired ethical values, guidelines for their behaviour as well as the punishment for violating these ethical principles. 26 However, in spite of their popularity, there is “no evidence that they actually improve ethical standards.”27 In his analysis of anti-corruption measures in African countries, Hope has identified the prevalence of introducing codes of conduct for both politicians and civil servants. Unfortunately, most of these codes of conduct adopted for African public officials are “ignored or not enforced.”28 More importantly, Caiden observes that “codes of ethics miss the mark because they are directed at the wrong target—the good public servants who follow them, not the corrupt who ignore them.”29 In other words, codes of ethics and ethics training are necessary but insufficient for curbing bureaucratic corruption. ACAs are specialised organisations established by governments to minimise corruption in their countries. Luis de Sousa defines an ACA as “a public [funded] body of a durable nature, with a specific mission to fight corruption and reduce the opportunity structures propitious for its occurrence in society through prevention and repressive measures.” 30 The first ACA is the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), which was established in October 1952 in Singapore to replace its ineffective predecessor, the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Singapore Police Force (SPF).31 The success of the CPIB and Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong SAR, China, which was formed in February 1974, has encouraged the belief that ACAs are effective in combating corruption.32 Consequently, the number of ACAs has increased exponentially from below 20 ACAs in 1990 to almost 150 ACAs in the world in 2012.33 As the track record of ACAs in combating corruption is uneven, with more cases of failure than success, it is important for governments to enhance their ACAs’ capacity to curb corruption. The compliance approach is based on deterrence theory and focuses on the “prevention of unlawful conduct, primarily by increasing surveillance and control and by imposing penalties for wrongdoers.” Furthermore, it “overemphasises the threat of detection and punishment in order to channel behaviour in lawful directions.” However, 25

the weakness of the compliance approach is that it does not “address the root causes of misconduct.”34 Consequently, Paine has recommended the adoption of an integrity strategy for ethics management because it is “broader, deeper, and more demanding than a legal compliance initiative.”35 The integrity-based approach combines “a concern for the law with an emphasis on managerial responsibility for ethical behaviour.”36 She concludes that the integrity strategy creates “a climate that encourages exemplary conduct” and is “the best way to discourage damaging misconduct.”37 The integrity approach’s rationale is to enable civil servants to “make ethical decisions autonomously based on sound ethical arguments” so that they will be motivated to “do the right thing.”38 It relies on ethics training to make them aware of the importance of ethical conduct in the civil service. However, such training cannot prevent civil servants from being involved in misconduct if they wish to do so. For example, among the nine employees of the United States Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service’s Royalty in Kind Programme found guilty of ethical misconduct, eight of them had received ethics training annually from 2002 to 2006 and “knew that they were violating government ethics standards when they accepted gifts from prohibited sources.”39 Finally, the integrity approach is not easy to implement or a silver bullet, which can curb the problem of normalised corruption overnight. Holmes has reservations regarding the integrity approach because relying on ethics training to combat corruption “takes a long time, sometimes generations, for it to be effective.” Furthermore, the integrity approach’s impact will be marginal because of the influence of other factors.40 Community-based anti-corruption programmes The late Samuel Paul pioneered the use of a report card to collect feedback from 1,130 citizens using the public services in Bangalore, India in 1993-1994.41 The report card provided interesting data on the extent of “retail” corruption in six public agencies, including the proportion of respondents who paid bribes and the average amount of these bribes. Table 4 shows that 33 per cent of the respondents paid “speed money” to the officials in the Regional Transport Office to expedite the provision of services. The bribes paid to the Bangalore City Corporation officials were the highest, with an average amount of Rs 656 (US$21.90) per transaction. While the Bangalore survey confirmed the pervasiveness of both extortion and bribery, it found that more than 60 per cent of the respondents felt that paying bribes was wrong. However, more than half of them were willing to pay more to officials in public agencies for better services because they believed that they would not

receive the benefits without paying bribes.42 The most “shocking” finding was that 32 per cent of the respondents from the poorer households admitted that they had to pay bribes to solve their problems. Nevertheless, 40 per cent of them did not get satisfactory results even though they had bribed the officials.43 Table 4: The Speed Money Phenomenon in Six Public Agencies in Bangalore, 1994 Public Agency Regional Transport Office Bangalore City Corporation Public hospitals Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board Karnataka Electricity Board Bangalore Telecom

Source: Samuel Paul, Holding the State to Account: Citizen Monitoring in Action (Bangalore: Books for Change, 2002), p. 45. Paul’s innovative use of a report card to provide citizen feedback on the quality of public services provided in Bangalore not only gives “voice” to the poor and marginalised groups but also serves as “a trigger for public action” by the CSOs to demand more public accountability.44 The use of report cards was subsequently followed by other bottom-up initiatives to combat corruption at the local level, including the ipaidabribe.com website, initiated by Ramesh and Swati Ramanathan, the founders of the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy in Bangalore, on 15 August 2010. The aim of this website is to “uncover the market price of corruption” in Indian cities by inviting individuals to report when they paid a bribe (including the place and amount), when they did not, and when they were not asked to pay a bribe by sharing their story online by completing a form, blogging about their experiences, or even posting a video.45 While this website has not solved the problem of bribery in India, it has nevertheless shown that “ordinary people can be turned from [being] the victims of corruption into part of the solution.”46 Richards evaluated the effectiveness of fifteen community-based anti-corruption initiatives in Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Italy, Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Republic of Korea to identify those programmes which were effective as well as the factors contributing to their success. She attributed the effective programmes to three factors: (1) a clearly defined programme focus and strategy with in-built flexibility; (2) implementation of the programme by a skilled and competent team; and (3) the trust of the

communities.47 However, she emphasised that the most important finding was that “there was no single condition, factor or catalyst that underpinned the success of a community anti-corruption program” as each initiative succeeded because of a combination of several factors.48 III. Common Causes of Corruption In his pioneering comparative study of controlling bureaucratic corruption in Hong Kong SAR, China, India and Indonesia, Palmier identifies three important causes of corruption: opportunities (which depended on the extent of involvement of civil servants in the administration or control of lucrative activities), salaries, and policing (the probability of detection and punishment).49 Bureaucratic corruption depends on the balance between these three factors: “with few opportunities, good salaries, and effective policing, corruption will be minimal,” but “with many opportunities, poor salaries, and weak policing, it will be considerable.”50 In addition to these three causes, this section will analyse the influence of cultural values and practices, as well as the difficult governance environment of the most fragile countries. Low salaries of civil servants Passas contends that “you cannot fight corruption on an empty stomach. You cannot fight corruption when salaries are below real living standards.”51 Indeed, low salaries contribute to corruption because “when civil service pay is too low, civil servants may be obliged to use their positions to collect bribes as a way of making ends meet, particularly when the expected cost of being caught is low.”52 In his study of civil service salaries in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka from 1977 to 1987, Chew found that corruption was “an unsavoury response” to the “falling or low real salary scales” in these countries and became widespread and viewed as “inevitable and incurable by the public.”53 At the Commission on Immigration and Deportation (CID) in the Philippines, opportunities for corruption abound as many unqualified employees were hired because of nepotism or patronage. As they are paid “starvation wages” CID employees cannot “survive without accepting bribes” because “nearly everybody is doing it.”54 To supplement their low wages, civil servants in Myanmar are provided with welfare benefits such as free 47

Sources: Htay Htay Lwin, “Civil Service System and Civil Service Reform in Myanmar,” in Pan Suk Kim (ed.), Civil Service System and Civil Service Reform in ASEAN Member Countries and Korea (Seoul: Daeyoung Moonhwasa Publishing Company, 2010), p. 191; and Republic of the Philippines, “National Budget Circular,” No. 540 (Manila: Department of Budget and Management, May 10, 2012), p. 8, Annex A. In Cuba, corruption is common among “poorly or irregularly paid” educational officials, who are forced to accept bribes to supplement their meagre wages. 56 In 2002, the average monthly salary of state workers ranged from US$8.20 for the lowest-paid workers to US$12.40 for the highest-paid workers. Consequently, these poorly paid workers had to make ends meet by “either stealing property from the state to sell or exchange in the black market or not showing up for work and using that time to engage in legal or illegal activities that generate hard currencies.”57 In Mexico, since the Spanish crown designed the system, civil servants were underpaid, with the mordida (bite or bribe) serving as a tax on the public, providing income to them, “from the cop on the beat and the clerk in the office of the Department of the Interior to the president of the Republic.”58 Indeed, throughout Latin America (except Brazil) the Spanish crown ignored the corrupt practices of the colonial administration “as long as it could share in its proceeds.”59 In many African countries, civil servants survive by lowering their ethical and performance standards or remain honest and perish. Most of them opt for survival and

55

Htay Htay Lwin, “Civil Service System and Civil Service Reform in Myanmar,” in Pan Suk Kim (ed.), Civil Service System and Civil Service Reform in ASEAN Member Countries and Korea (Seoul: Daeyoung Moonhwasa Publishing Company, 2010), p. 199. 56 Sergio Diaz-Briquets and Jorge Pérez-López, Corruption in Cuba: Castro and Beyond (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006), p. 43. 57 Ibid., pp. 98-99. 58 Shorris, The Life and Times of Mexico, p. 486. 59 Benny Pollack and Ann Matean, “Dictatorship, Democracy and Corruption in Chile,” Crime, Law and Social Change, 25 (4) (1997): 371.

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supplement their meagre salaries by resorting to corruption to support their families. 60 The declining economic growth and living standards of civil servants in many African countries make “corruption a viable means of social livelihood.”61 In other words, “corruption becomes a coping strategy to compensate for economic hardship” for poorly paid civil servants in many countries.62 For example, low wages in Sierra Leone encourage poorly paid civil servants administering important programmes, budgets, taxes and customs regulations to accept bribes because their monthly salaries are inadequate to meet their expenses. A senior official’s monthly salary of US$28 in 1992 could not cover his monthly expenses of US$40.63 The National Public Perceptions Survey on Corruption in Sierra Leone in 2010 found that 57.6 per cent of the respondents identified low salaries as the third most important cause of corruption in Sierra Leone, after greed or selfishness (76.2 per cent) and poverty (74.4 per cent).64 Apart from being paid low salaries, civil servants in many African countries are not paid their monthly salaries on time and regularly because of corruption and financial mismanagement. Public school teachers and university professors in several African states usually wait for many months to get paid. In Cameroon and Nigeria, university professors are not paid their salaries for up to six months.65 In Nigeria, civil servants in eight states were not paid their salaries for several months in 2015 and survived by asking their friends and relatives for money and food, getting loans from various sources, or doing menial jobs. The non-payment of salaries in Nigeria for six months has also forced many civil servants into “forced fasting” by skipping lunch daily and selling jewellery and household appliances.66 The anthropologist Daniel Smith has observed that in Nigeria, “the squeeze placed on civil servants by insufficient and delayed salaries, rapid inflation, and the costs associated with achieving their own families’ aspirations” have created “immense pressures to be corrupt.”67 In his study on civil service salaries in Africa, Robinson showed that “the real value” of these salaries in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and Tanzania had declined during 1975-1985. In Somalia, the real value of the civil service salaries in 1987 was one-twentieth of their 1975 real value.68 Apart from having “deleterious effects on motivation and 60

efficiency,” the drastic decline in real pay also means that, without reducing the workforce, it will be difficult to improve the real pay of civil servants without alternative sources of government funding.69 The extremely low salaries of civil servants in Somalia have resulted not only in widespread absenteeism and inefficiency but also “petty and gross corruption” which they resort to “in order to augment their pitiful salaries.” 70 Stasavage found that the decrease in real wages for civil servants and the increasing salary gap in the public and private sectors had contributed to the increase in corruption in Mozambique during 1980 to 1990.71 In 1995, an Asian Development Bank study of Mongolia’s legal system described the difficult living conditions of judges in the countryside because one-third of them did not own an apartment and were forced to live in their offices.72 Their monthly salaries of between US$33 to US$51 were lower than those of lawyers in private practice and made them vulnerable to corrupt practices and resulted in their negative public perception. Even though the monthly salaries have increased to between US$300 and US$400 for lower court judges and US$700 for Supreme Court judges in 2009, these salaries are “barely sufficient for judges to secure basic necessities such as food and housing for their families.”73 Consequently, it was not surprising that Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer had identified in 2009 the judiciary in Mongolia as the most corrupt sector and as the second most corrupt sector in 2010, after political parties and parliament.74 Similarly, according to the Global Corruption Barometer 2013, the judiciary and the medical and health sectors in Mongolia were the second most corrupt sectors after public officials and civil servants.75 The major reason for police corruption in Georgia before the 2004 reforms was the low salaries of police officers. A senior policeman complained that “there were months at a time when the salary was frozen. So the government was, in a way, facilitating police to become corrupt.” Consequently, many police officers resorted to corruption to support their families. Furthermore, their low salaries also enabled criminal elements to “buy off entire divisions of the [police] force.”76 The official monthly salary of traffic policemen was less than US$50 but they were not paid that amount because it “would go into the pocket of the bosses” and other police officers.77 The police in Pakistan was the most corrupt among the

21 Asian countries included in Transparency’s Global Corruption Barometer 2010-11.78 This finding is not surprising because “low salaries and lack of health care and fulfilment of their basic needs keep police officers depressed and disturbed.” Their high level of stress is further aggravated by their long working hours and “the strain of miserable living conditions” as police officers live in old government quarters or in small houses in the slums.79 Red tape increases corruption opportunities Red tape refers to “bureaucratic procedures characterised by mechanical adherence to regulations, excessive formality and attention to routine, and the compilation of large amounts of extraneous information resulting in prolonged delay or inaction.”80 Civil servants are tempted “by opportunities to sell their official discretion and information” and “by the opportunities to extort payments” because “permits can be delayed, licences held up, deliberations protracted, proceedings prolonged, unless rewards are offered.”81 Red tape provides civil servants with the excuse to extort bribes from those members of the public who are willing to pay “speed money” to “cut” red tape and reduce delay by expediting their applications for licences or permits.82 Governments usually regulate activities to protect the public by providing safeguards or to restrict the provision of goods and services to qualified deliverers selected from a larger pool of competitors. Regulatory agencies rely on “licences, permits, approvals, inspections, oversight, prosecutions, and fines” to enforce their policies and programmes.83 In the Republic of Korea, regulation has resulted in red tape as illustrated in the submission of an average of 44.2 documents by a company to apply for permission to build a factory. Furthermore, it would take three years in the Republic of Korea to build a factory instead of the two and a half months in Austin, Texas.84 Myoung-soo Kim has explained why red tape in the Republic of Korea has resulted in costly delays and corruption: Complex procedures requiring lots of documents result in delays. These delays in turn result in costs, in terms of time and money, to the clients, private persons, or business firms. They are then tempted into collusion with the bureaucrats who have control over the matter to seek other 78

easier ways to get what they need, even by illegitimate means. They may bring in politicians and seek their favour to influence the bureaucrats. Finally, there may be collusion between clients and bureaucrats, or three-way collusion among bureaucrats, clients, and politicians.85 In 1998, President Kim Dae-Jung established the Regulatory Reform Committee (RRC) to make the Republic of Korea more business friendly by eliminating unnecessary or irrational regulations which hindered business activities or interfered in people’s lives. The RRC succeeded in abolishing 5,226 (48 per cent) of the 11,115 administrative regulations after its first year of operations.86 In April 1999, the Seoul Metropolitan Government launched an “Online Procedure Enhancement for Civil Applications (OPEN)” system to improve civil applications covering 54 common procedures, which could be filed through the Internet. The OPEN system has enhanced the transparency of civil procedures and reduced the opportunities for corruption by “preventing unfairness and delays in administrative procedures.” By May 2000, the OPEN system had handled 28,000 cases of civil applications and more than 648,000 visitors had accessed its website. The OPEN system has enhanced “customer-oriented delivery of public services” and “transparency of city administration” because those officials responsible for permit or approval procedures (usually perceived as corruption-prone) are “required to upload their work reports and documents to the Internet” to enable citizens to monitor the progress of their applications.87 Table 6: Red Tape and Corruption in Ten Countries in 2014-2016 Country

The Republic of Korea’s success in reducing red tape is reflected in its fourth ranking among the 189 economies on the ease of doing business in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2016, which is a measure of red tape because it is easier to do business in those countries with little or no red tape. More specifically, it requires 10 procedures and 28 days to obtain a construction permit, and seven procedures and 6.5 days to register a property in the Republic of Korea.88 As red tape is an important cause of corruption, the elimination of unnecessary regulations and red tape has strengthened anti-corruption efforts in the Republic of Korea. The association between red tape and corruption in ten countries is illustrated in Table 6 as the time required to obtain a construction permit ranges from 249 days in Iraq to 652 days in Cambodia. With the exceptions of Cyprus and Barbados, which have respective CPI scores of 63 and 74 in 2014, the other eight countries afflicted with red tape have low CPI scores ranging from 12 for Afghanistan to 43 for Brazil. Low risk of detection and punishment To curb corruption effectively in a country, those persons found guilty of corrupt offences should be punished according to the law. However, in reality, the probability of detection and punishment of corrupt offences varies in different countries. Corruption thrives in those countries where the public perceives it to be a “low risk, high reward” activity because corrupt offenders are unlikely to be caught and punished. On the other hand, corruption is not a serious problem in those countries where corruption is perceived as a “high risk, low reward” activity because those involved in corrupt activities are likely to be caught and severely punished.89 The low probability of detection and punishment in China has contributed to corruption as only 1,915 (or 6.6 per cent) of the 28,901 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres who were disciplined by the CCP during 1993-1998 were sentenced by the courts.90 This means that if a party member commits a corrupt offence, he or she has only a 6.6 per cent probability of being prosecuted. With such a low probability of being caught for corrupt offences, it is not surprising that many senior officials are willing to assume the low risk for committing such offences.91 Furthermore, among the 115,143 CCP members disciplined during 1992-2006, 44,836 (38.9 per cent) were warned, and 32,289 (28 per cent) of them were given a serious warning. This means that two-thirds of those party members who were disciplined “got away with only a mild to serious warning that appeared to have no real punitive consequences.”92

Corruption has flourished in the Philippines partly because of the low probability of detection and punishment for corrupt offenders. A comparative study of successful prosecution of corrupt offenders in Hong Kong SAR, China, and the Philippines by Beschel found that a person committing a corrupt offence in Hong Kong SAR, China was 33 times more likely to be detected and punished than his counterpart in the Philippines. ICAC of Hong Kong SAR, China successfully prosecuted about 8.24 cases per 10,000 civil servants for corruption in 1997. By contrast, the Office of the Ombudsman (OMB) in the Philippines prosecuted only 0.25 cases per 10,000 civil servants in 1997.93 The reduced probability of being convicted for corruption in the Philippines was confirmed by the former Ombudsman, Simeon V. Marcelo, who revealed that the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s conviction rate at the Sandiganbayan (Anti-Graft Court) was a “dismal 6 per cent,” which meant that a senior government official accused of corruption had “a 94 per cent chance of walking away scot-free.”94 In his 1969 survey of regional economic planners in Indonesia, Smith found that apart from the lack of incentives for correct behaviour, sanctions were also absent or rarely applied to those officials who were poor performers because “cultural norms effectively preclude punitive denial of the perquisites, however minor, that attend each position.” Among the 120 officials who replied to the question on the action to be taken against poor performers, 88 of them admitted that they did not dismiss their ineffective subordinates. Indeed, the common procedure for dealing with corrupt officials was “to transfer them to new jobs before their activities gain wide attention.”95 Morris contends that an important cause of corruption in Mexico is “the lack of a juridical basis for the punishment of officials charged with malfeasance.”96 Apart from light punishment, public officials are protected from prosecution until the removal of such immunity. Furthermore, those officials who are punished are allowed to return to public life. It was reported that half of the two thousand public officials prosecuted in 1980 had returned to public life.97 Corruption is embedded in the daily informal practices of African civil servants, which include the “culture of impunity” because the worst punishment for embezzlement or corruption is re-assignment or a change of working place. Many heads of departments admitted that they could not punish incompetent, negligent, or venal subordinates because of “a flood of protestations and interventions” in their favour.98 The limited number of

convictions for corrupt offences throughout Africa has encouraged corruption to thrive because “the rewards are potentially great and the risks potentially low.”99 In his study of endemic corruption in Cameroon, Fombad contends that the penalties for corrupt offences should depend on the seriousness of the offence to serve as an effective deterrent. Convicted offenders should not be eligible for holding senior positions or standing for elected public office. Business persons found guilty of corruption should be disqualified from bidding for government contracts.100 Consequently, Hope has recommended that “corruption must be made a high-risk activity” in African countries so that “the perpetrators will be caught and severely punished, irrespective of their status or standing in society.” The punishment of “prominent, high-level corrupt officials” will send “the right signal” in all African countries that “the campaign against corruption is indeed a very serious one.”101 In sum, as Karklins has argued, “corrupt acts can be deterred if it is highly probable that people who engage in them will be called into account and will pay a significant price” because exposure and other accountability mechanisms have high costs for PEPs. 102 Cultural values and practices Culture has been used to “explain, or excuse, acts of corruption.” Nevertheless, Larmour contends that cultural practices like gift-giving are useful in understanding corruption.103 Culture contributes to corruption in a country when cultural practices like gift-giving and family ties influence individuals to give or receive bribes. The importance of gift-giving in Japan is reflected not only in seasonal and souvenir gifts but also for rites of passage like weddings and funerals. The anthropologist, Harumi Befu, has identified 37 occasions when Japanese give ceremonial gifts.104 The frequency of gift-giving occasions in Japan facilitates the passing of bribes from “businessman to politician or from politician to voter.”105 Whether gifts are seasonal, souvenir, or ceremonial, gift-giving in Japan is related to status and form in social relationships by strengthening mutual ties and obligations between givers and recipients.106 Many Japanese households give and receive gifts from their relatives, friends, neighbours, children’s playmates, and husband’s colleagues and business associates. 99

Furthermore, the protocol of Japanese gift-giving does not allow the receiver to refuse the gift to avoid losing face. The only situation when a person can refuse a gift is when there are specific institutional regulations prohibiting individuals from accepting gifts. For example, some companies do not allow their employees to give gifts to their superiors. Government officials are instructed not to receive gifts which might be viewed as bribes. However, in reality, it is difficult for Japanese civil servants to refuse gifts because the regulations prohibiting them from accepting gifts contradict the socio-cultural norms which “approve, encourage and often require gift-giving.”107 Befu has attributed the Japanese penchant for gift-giving to four factors. First, gifts are given because it is customary to do so in midsummer and at the end of the year, and at weddings and funerals. Second, those receiving gifts at weddings or funerals are expected to reciprocate by providing gifts to the givers on future occasions. Third, a gift reflects the giver’s gratitude for a past favour done by the receiver. An individual who fails to reciprocate with a favour or gift is chastised for being “unmindful of social norms.” Fourth, gifts are given as “an advanced appreciation of an anticipated favour (sewa).” In other words, gift-giving in Japan is “a social lubricant” to improve human relations because a gift “obligates the receiver at least to act in a more civil manner toward the giver than without the gift.”108 As Japanese social norms “encourage, compel and prescribe gift-giving,” the government and company regulations prohibiting gift-giving are ineffective because they contradict all the traditional norms. However, individuals violating these regulations regarding gift-giving are not ostracised, but their behaviour is reinforced by the social norms.109 It is difficult to distinguish a gift from a bribe in Japan because the Japanese emphasise the formal aspects of gift-giving to provide a “thin veil of propriety” for a bribe so that it can be viewed as a gift instead.110 Consequently, it is not surprising that the number of bribery cases involving Japanese civil servants has declined from 80 in 1960 to 12 in 1985.111 Similarly, giving gifts to officials in Thailand is not viewed as bribery but as sin nam jai or gifts of goodwill. Thais do not consider bribes as a form of corruption as long as no one is hurt. Gift-giving by the public to officials for services provided is common because these gifts are considered as fees levied by the officials to supplement their low salaries. The Thai population’s tolerance of corruption is reflected in their acceptance of the corrupt practices of civil servants, military leaders and politicians.112 As shown in Box 1, Thais have identified seven levels of corruption, ranging from the least severe sin nam jai to the most severe kan

107

Harumi Befu, “Bribery in Japan: When Law tangles with Culture,” (Paper presented at the Colloquium, Center for Japanese and Korean Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA, April 21, 1971), pp. 3 and 5-8. 108 Ibid., pp. 9-10 and 13-14. 109 Ibid., p. 15. 110 The Japanese disguise a bribe as a gift by giving clean currency notes in a money envelope, or give giftcertificates from departmental stores because the use of wrinkled notes or the absence of a gift-money envelope are used as evidence to substantiate the prosecutor’s claim that the money offered was a bribe and not a gift. See Quah, Curbing Corruption in Asian Countries, p. 53. 111 B.C. Koh, Japan’s Administrative Elite (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989), p. 228. 112 Quah, Curbing Corruption in Asian Countries, p. 290.

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khorrapchuan or corruption. Of these seven levels, the first three levels are viewed as acceptable practices, but the other four levels are deemed to be unacceptable practices.

The family is an important institution in many countries. In the Philippines, the importance of kinship ties and utang na loob or “debt of gratitude” have made Filipinos more tolerant of corruption. The kinship ties of the extended family are broadened through the compadre system, in which a prominent man or woman in the community is selected as “the child’s godfather [or godmother] or the compadre of the parent.” The child’s godparent acts as an intermediary in dealings with the government, and receives in return “gifts or free labour services in election campaigns and other political situations.” The compadre system encourages Filipinos to rely on an intermediary whenever possible.113 Not surprisingly, lower-income Filipinos usually choose richer or more influential persons as compadres for their children. For example, the late President Marcos was reported to have 20,000 godchildren.114 In Latin America, individuals living in local communities are related through extended family ties to almost everyone in the community. Apart from inter-marriage, the system of compadrazgo, meaning godfather or godmother relationship, binds those living in these communities together so that they act, feel, and think as a single group.115 A different version of “godfatherism” subverts the practice of democratic elections in Nigeria and other African countries. The African godfathers are wealthy men who nominate and finance their selected candidates for public office. They expect in return from their godsons after their election “access to the corridors of power, contracts for themselves, relatives and clients, and access to state resources.”116 These godfathers ensure compliance 113

by requiring their godsons to “sign undated letters of resignation and filming them making resignation announcements.” If they fail to deliver, their godfathers will publicise the resignation letters and videotapes to force their resignation.117 The culture of patronage in the Philippines can be traced to the Filipino’s reverence for the family because whenever a person occupies an administrative or political position, the members of his or her family and immediate relatives “use the power and influence” of the position “as a bridge in getting preferential employment.”118 The culture of patronage is further reinforced by utang na loob, which is incurred when one receives a favour, service, or goods, and it also implies a deep sense of obligation to reciprocate when the appropriate moment comes.119 Consequently, nepotism prevails because in practice recruitment and promotion in the civil service is based on utang na loob instead of merit as public officials select their unqualified friends or relatives to reciprocate their help or to secure close allies.120 The extended family in Africa plays a central role and imposes duties and obligations on its members. Consequently, it is advantageous to extend the family’s reach to include as many persons as possible beyond “one’s own siblings to larger groups like the village and ethnic group.”121 Kwasi Oduro, a sociology lecturer at the University of Ghana, was indebted to his mother for financing his education but complained that his relatives were “vultures” who “want money from you and they know how to get it” by telling lies “to soften your heart.”122 Harden has captured the essence of the importance of the African extended family thus: The hooks of the extended family cut into the hearts and pocketbooks of almost every African. … With its labyrinthine web of rights and duties, the extended family is a day-care, social security, and welfare system. … It pays for all this by redistributing resources between haves and havenots. … It is governed by ties of blood, of tradition, of guilt. … as the average African grows poorer every year—the extended family functions as a kind of home-grown glue. It holds together the world’s poorest and most politically brittle continent.123 Calderisi, a former World Bank senior official who had worked in Tanzania and Côte d’Ivoire, contends that “ironically, a root of corruption is Africa’s strong family ties” because ministers and senior civil servants “face queues of cousins, acquaintances, and constituents 117

outside their door, even on the weekend, to air their complaints or seek material support.”124 Unlike other countries, “family loyalty can be tyrannous in Africa” because “if someone succeeds, however modestly, relatives will often insist on sharing in the fruits of that accomplishment.” Anyone who violates this social convention is ostracised, expelled from the clan and treated as an outcast.125 In Nigeria, “a man who enriches himself through emptying government coffers” is despised in his community “only if he fails to share enough of that wealth with his people.”126 In her book, The Bright Continent, the Nigerian-American journalist Dayo Olopade describes the “Family Map of Africa” which “defines and supports life without a state safety net” and “anchors diverse development solutions, from health care delivery to off-grid energy sales.”127 Indeed, Africa’s Family Map provides not only solidarity and communal intelligence, but also an extensive reach, which connects Africans to their diaspora around the world.128 Corruption in Zambia became endemic and systemic after President Frederick Chiluba assumed office after winning the October 1991 election. Tribalism and nepotism characterised Chiluba’s regime because he had replaced the senior personnel in the civil service, military, and intelligence agencies with his financiers, supporters and members of his Bemba-speaking ethnic group. Other cabinet ministers and senior officials had also appointed their clanspersons to important positions.129 The Pickard Commission of Inquiry into the culture of corruption in South Africa’s Department of Development Aid (DDA) in 1991 uncovered “gross irregularities” including tender fraud as well as nepotism and favouritism. Among other things, the Commission found that the daughter of a deputy director was promoted rapidly by her father and her study bursary was taken over by the DDA against official policy after her father’s intervention.130

In Papua New Guinea, gift-giving creates and maintains friendships between the donors and recipients, who are obligated to reciprocate at a future date. Furthermore, the wantok or “one-language” or “one talk” system is “an intricate network of people from an extended family, tribe, or language group who help each other in times of need or emergency.” Many civil servants have abused their positions by rewarding themselves from the public purse, or by awarding jobs or contracts to their own wantoks, families, or relatives.131

124

Calderisi, The Trouble with Africa, p. 86. Ibid., p. 83. 126 Smith, A Culture of Corruption, p. 65. 127 Olopade, The Bright Continent, p. 70. 128 Ibid., p. 83. 129 Bornwell C. Chikulo, “Corruption and Accumulation in Zambia,” in Hope and Chikulo (eds.), Corruption and Development in Africa, p. 171. 130 Constance Bauer, “Public Sector Corruption and its Control in South Africa,” in Hope and Chikulo (eds.), Corruption and Development in Africa, p. 222. 131 David Kombako, “Corruption as a Consequence of Cultural and Social Idiosyncrasies in a Developing Society,” in Albert Ayrus and R.J. May (eds.), Corruption in Papua New Guinea: Towards an Understanding of Issues (Boroko: National Research Institute Special Publication No. 47, November 2007), pp. 33-34. 125

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Difficult governance environment As the effectiveness of ACAs also depends on their “enabling environment,”132 the difficult governance environment of the 16 most fragile countries constitutes a serious obstacle to the effective implementation of their anti-corruption strategies. The difficult environment of the “fragile states” is reflected in their high levels of corruption, political instability, government ineffectiveness, and low level of rule of law. Table 7: Difficult Governance Environment of 16 Most Fragile States Country

The Fragile States Index (FSI) is based on 12 indicators: four social indicators; two economic indicators; and six political and military indicators. The FSI score for 178 countries ranges from “very sustainable” (0-20) to “very high alert” (110-120). Sources: “Fragile States Index 2015,” available at www.fsi.fundforpeace.org (accessed 14 November 2015); “Corruption Perceptions Index 2014 Results,” available at www. transparency.org/cpi2014/results (accessed 14 November 2015); and “Worldwide Governance Indicators 2014,” available at www.info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/ index.aspx#home (accessed 14 November 2015). First, all these fragile countries are afflicted by normalised corruption as Table 7 shows that their CPI 2014 scores range from 8 for Somalia to 32 for Côte d’Ivoire. This finding is not surprising because corruption not only flourishes but “thrives on an unusually destructive

132

UNDP, Capacity Assessment of Anti-Corruption Agencies, p. 27.

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scale” in these countries with their “escalating levels of venal corruption.” 133 Second, the poor governance of these countries is reflected in their low percentile ranks on the World Bank’s three indicators of political stability and absence of violence or terrorism, government effectiveness, and rule of law, as shown in Table 7. As these countries are still embroiled in conflict or are in the post-conflict stage, it is not surprising that their percentile ranks for political stability vary from zero for Syria to 25.24 for Haiti. Their levels of government effectiveness are also low, with zero for Somalia to 22.12 percentile rank for Pakistan. Needless to say, the rule of law is found wanting in these countries also and ranges from zero for Somalia to 30.29 percentile rank for Côte d’Ivoire. A final problem facing those fragile countries endowed with natural resources is the natural resource curse or “the tendency of natural-resource-exporting countries to underperform economically, have nondemocratic governments as well as poor governance, and a higher propensity for involvement in conflicts.” 134 Poor countries which are resourcerich suffer from the “resource curse” because their natural assets foster political instability and corruption as “greedy individuals try to get their hands on them.” 135 To avoid the “resource curse” of corruption, wasteful spending and inflation, Timor-Leste established in 2005 a multi-billion oil and natural gas sovereign fund based on Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to encourage the government to adopt long-term planning, fiscal responsibility and develop the productive sectors of the economy. Accordingly, in August 2011, Parliament approved the investment of half of its US$8.7 billion petroleum fund in equities.136 Similarly, the importance of natural resource extraction in Mongolia in recent years is reflected in the creation of a new Ministry of Minerals and Energy in 2008.137 The increasing importance of Mongolia as a location for exploration by international mining companies has increased the opportunities for corruption in the allocation of exploration licences with the emergence of a “grey” market for trading licences among these companies. 138 The recent discovery of massive copper, gold, coal, uranium and rare earth deposits has increased foreign investment and contributed to Mongolia’s 17.3 per cent economic growth in 2011.139 Consequently, migrant workers have described Mongolia as “Minegolia” because the value of its mineral resources is estimated to be US$1.3 trillion. As most Mongolians believe that their political leaders have benefited from “special arrangements” with foreign companies over mining rights, the government has been compelled by public pressure to consider introducing restrictions on foreign ownership and participation in mining 133

activities.140 As Tavan Tolgoi has the world’s largest untapped coal deposit, it is not surprising that mining companies from China, United States, Russia, Japan and Republic of Korea are interested in acquiring and developing the 7.5 billion tons Tavan Tolgoi coal mine.141 Even though the Mongolian government has introduced many laws for mining licencing and exploration, it lacks the means or will to fully enforce these laws. The Mongolian government’s emphasis on developing rather than regulating the mining sector does not bode well for Mongolia’s future as it is unlikely to escape from the resource curse.142 In sum, the normalisation of corruption in many countries is the combined result of the low salaries of civil servants, red tape, the low probability of detecting and punishing corrupt offenders, cultural values and practices which encourage corruption, and their difficult governance environment of systemic corruption, political instability, government ineffectiveness, and low degree of rule of law. IV. Effectiveness of Corruption Control There are three patterns of combating corruption depending on whether ACAs are used to enforce the anti-corruption laws in the country.143 The first pattern of corruption control occurs when the anti-corruption laws are enforced by other institutions instead of ACAs. Countries which rely on this pattern include Denmark, Finland, Japan and New Zealand, to mention four examples. Denmark relies on the Ombudsman, the Public Accounts Committee and the Auditor-General’s Office to curb corruption. The Ombudsman and the Chancellor of Justice are the two important institutions responsible for combating corruption in Finland. Denmark, Norway and Sweden are the integrity leaders in a regional assessment of the National Integrity Systems in 25 European countries even though they do not have dedicated ACAs.144 In New Zealand, the Ombudsman and the Serious Fraud Office ensure good governance and maintain its low level of corruption.145 Japan relies on the Special Investigation Departments of the Public Prosecutor’s Offices in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya to investigate bribery and corruption cases.146

Even though Italy has ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) on 5 October 2009 it does not have a dedicated ACA. The existing “structures” for combating corruption are given a score of 38 out of 100 because of their limited resources and lack of independence, transparency, and accountability.147 Accordingly, Transparency International Italy has recommended the establishment of an independent, stable, and effective ACA in Italy.148 The second pattern of corruption control refers to the implementation of the anticorruption laws by a single ACA. As mentioned earlier, this pattern was popularised by the effectiveness of the CPIB in Singapore and the ICAC in Hong Kong SAR, China.149 During the 62-year period between the formation of the CPIB in October 1952 and the establishment of the latest Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in Myanmar on 25 February 2014, single ACAs were formed in these 20 Asian countries or territories: Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong SAR, China, Brunei Darussalam, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, Thailand, Macao SAR, China, the Republic of Korea, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Bhutan, Mongolia, Timor-Leste, Cambodia and Myanmar.150 Unlike New Zealand, the states in Australia rely on these ACAs: the ICAC and Police Integrity Commission in New South Wales; the Crime and Corruption Commission in Queensland; the Corruption and Crime Commission in Western Australia; the Integrity Commission in Tasmania; the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission in Victoria; and the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption and Office of Public Integrity in South Australia. In Africa, ACAs have been established in these 34 countries: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.151 The third pattern of corruption control exists when the anti-corruption laws are enforced by multiple ACAs. Canada has relied on five agencies to combat corruption. The Commercial Crime Branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) established the International Anti-Corruption Unit in 2008 to enforce the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. In June 2013, the RCMP formed the National Division and the Financial Integrity Unit to investigate the corruption of Canadian and foreign officials. 152 At the provincial level, the Anti-Rackets Branch of the Ontario Provincial Police has a Corruption Unit which investigates corruption complaints involving business activities at the provincial

and municipal levels.153 In 2011, the Unité Permanente Anti-Corruption was created to investigate and prosecute corruption offences in Québec. During the same year, the Charbonneau Commission was also established to investigate corruption and collusion in the granting and management of public contracts in the construction industry in Canada.154 Among Asian countries with two ACAs, India155 relies on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and Vietnam relies on the Government Inspectorate and the Office of the Central Steering Committee for AntiCorruption. China has four ACAs: the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI); the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP); the Ministry of Supervision; and the National Bureau for Corruption Prevention.156 The five ACAs in the Philippines are: the OMB; the Sandiganbayan; the President Commission on Good Government; the Inter-Agency AntiGraft Coordinating Council; and the Office of the Deputy Secretary for Legal Affairs.157 Importance of political will Political will is “the commitment of actors to undertake actions to achieve a set of objectives—in this case, anti-corruption policies and programmes—and to sustain the costs of those actions over time.”158 There are five indicators of political will. First, there must be comprehensive anti-corruption legislation. Second, the ACAs must be provided with adequate personnel, budget and operational autonomy to enable them to perform their functions effectively. Third, the anti-corruption laws must be enforced impartially, regardless of the offender’s position, status or political affiliation, without political interference. Fourth, political will exists when the government avoids the use of corruption as a weapon against its political opponents. Fifth, anti-corruption efforts must be sustained and their impact must be monitored by the government.159 Political will is a prerequisite for effective corruption control for three reasons. First, combating corruption is expensive because the ACAs need sufficient personnel, budget and operational autonomy to enforce the anti-corruption laws impartially. Without political will, the ACAs will not be provided with the required personnel, budget and operational autonomy because “the principal people who can change a culture of corruption if they wish to do so are politicians” as they “make the laws and allocate the funds that enable the laws to be enforced.”160 Political will is also needed for curbing corruption effectively because 153

corrupt individuals and organisations are intelligent and powerful, with vested interests to circumvent the anti-corruption laws to avoid arrest and conviction for their offences. For example, Bernard Madoff was “smart, savvy, and experienced at bucking the system.”161 Finally, fighting corruption is difficult and complex because it is necessary to identify the causes of corruption and to recommend appropriate measures to address these causes over a sustained period of time. Often, governments fail to conduct this analysis. Two important indicators of the political will of governments in combating corruption are the budget and personnel allocated to their ACAs. First, the ACA’s per capita expenditure is calculated by dividing its budget in US$ for a selected year with the country’s population for the same year. Second, the ACA’s staff-population ratio is assessed by dividing the country’s population for a selected year with the number of ACA personnel for the same year.162 A comparison of these indicators for seven ACAs163 in Asian countries in Table 8 shows that for per capita expenditure, Hong Kong’s ICAC is ranked first with US$15.91, followed by Singapore’s CPIB, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), Bhutan’s ACC, Philippines’ OMB, Indonesia’s Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) or Corruption Eradication Commission, and India’s CBI. For staff-population ratio, the ICAC is also ranked first, followed by the ACC, MACC, CPIB, OMB, CBI and KPK. Table 8: Budgets and Personnel of Seven Asian ACAs in 2012 ACA

Peter J. Sander, Madoff: Corruption, Deceit, and the Making of the World’s most Notorious Ponzi Scheme (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2009), p. 223. 162 Jon S.T. Quah, “Benchmarking for excellence: A comparative analysis of seven Asian anti-corruption agencies,” Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 31 (2) (2009): 182. 163 These seven ACAs are selected for comparison in Table 8 because of the availability of data on their budgets and personnel in 2012 in their annual reports and other official reports.

The score is calculated from the respondents’ answers to this question: “In your country, how common is diversion of public funds to companies, individuals, or groups due to corruption?” The score ranges from 1 (very commonly occurs) to 7 (never occurs).

The score is calculated from the respondents’ answers to this question: “In your country, how common is it for firms to make undocumented extra payments or bribes in connection with (a) imports and exports; (b) public utilities; (c) annual tax payments; (d) awarding of public contracts and licenses; (e) obtaining favourable judicial decisions?” The score ranges from 1 (very common) to 7 (never occurs). c The score is calculated from the respondents’ answers to this question: “In your country, to what extent does organised crime (mafia-oriented racketeering, extortion) impose costs on businesses?” The score ranges from 1 (to a great extent) to 7 (not at all). d The score is calculated from the respondents’ answers to this question: “In your country, how would you rate the corporate ethics of companies (ethical behaviour in interactions with public officials, politicians, and other firms)?” The score ranges from 1 (extremely poor—among the worst in the world) to 7 (excellent—among the best in the world). Sources: http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results (accessed 14 November 2015); http://info.worldbank. org/governance/wgi/index.aspx#reports (accessed 14 November 2015); and Klaus Schwab (ed.), The Global Competitiveness Report 2014-2015 (Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2014), pp. 408, 410, 420 and 422. The four countries are Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, China, Botswana and Georgia. The important role played by the CPIB in Singapore, the ICAC in Hong Kong SAR, China, and the DCEC in Botswana is well known166 and their success in combating corruption is analysed below. Corruption was normalised in Georgia in 2003 as it was ranked 124 th among 133 countries on the CPI with a score of 1.8. However, as a result of the successful implementation of the comprehensive anti-corruption reforms after the Rose Revolution of November 2003, Georgia is now the least corrupt country in Eastern Europe and is ranked 50th among 175 countries with a score of 52 on the CPI in 2014 (see Table 12 below). Georgia is the only post-Soviet state which “has recorded measurable progress in undoing the criminalized state.”167 Singapore Corruption was widespread during the British colonial period as the government’s lack of political will was reflected in the enactment of the ineffective Prevention of Corruption Ordinance (POCO) in December 1937, which made the ACB of the SPF responsible for corruption control even though the 1879 and 1886 Commissions of Inquiry had documented the prevalence of police corruption in Singapore. Police corruption was rampant because the local junior policemen were poorly paid and were forced to accept bribes from the gambling house owners or to take on second jobs to supplement their meagre salaries even though they were not permitted to do so.168 The problem of corruption deteriorated during the Japanese Occupation (February 1942 to August 1945) because the high inflation rate made it difficult for civil servants to survive on their low wages. Trading in the black market 166

became a “way of life” and nepotism and corruption were “perfectly acceptable” as individuals relied on “connections, friends and relatives” to get jobs.169 Conditions worsened after World War II and bureaucratic corruption increased because of the inadequate supervision of the poorly paid civil servants.170 The ACB was inadequately staffed with 17 personnel and its location within the CID meant that its anti-corruption function was given lower priority than the investigation of serious crimes like murder and kidnapping. The ACB’s Achilles’ heel was its inability to curb police corruption because it was part of the SPF. This weakness was exposed in the Opium Hijacking scandal of October 1951 when it was discovered that three police detectives were part of a gang of robbers who stole a shipment of 1,800 pounds opium worth about S$400,000 (US$133,330). The ACB’s investigations revealed that some senior police officers were involved not only with the robbers, but also with the importers of the opium. 171 The Opium Hijacking scandal made the British colonial government realise its mistake of relying on the ACB to curb corruption when police corruption was normalised in Singapore then. The colonial government was dissatisfied with the outcome of the ACB’s investigations which resulted in the dismissal of a senior police officer and the forced retirement of another officer. Accordingly, the “special team” appointed to investigate the scandal submitted its report in September 1952. The government accepted the findings of the second inquiry and the ACB was replaced one month later by the special team, which became the CPIB.172 The People’s Action Party (PAP) won the May 1959 general election in Singapore and formed the government with Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister one month later. In his memoirs, Lee revealed that he and his colleagues were determined to keep Singapore free from corruption because they were “sickened by the greed, corruption and decadence of many Asian leaders.” Accordingly, they “wore white shirts and white slacks to symbolise purity and honesty” in their personal behaviour and public life when they took the oath of office on 5 June 1959.173 Learning from the British colonial government’s lack of political will in combating corruption as reflected in the CPIB’s lack of legal powers, personnel, and budget during its first eight years, the PAP government realised from the outset the critical importance of enhancing the CPIB’s powers and providing it with the required personnel and budget for performing its functions effectively. Consequently, the Prevention of Corruption Act (POCA) was enacted on 17 June 1960 to enhance the CPIB’s legal powers. The PAP government’s strong political will in curbing corruption is reflected in the improvement of the CPIB’s staffpopulation ratio from 1:53,086 in 2005 to 1:37,681 in 2012. Similarly, the CPIB’s per capita

expenditure has increased from US$1.79 to US$4.00 during the same period.174 By 2014, the CPIB’s staff-population ratio further improved to 1:24,638 and its per capita expenditure rose to US$5.68.175 Apart from its adequate staffing and funding, the CPIB is an effective ACA for three reasons. First, even though the CPIB comes under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister’s Office, the prime minister does not interfere in its daily operations and the CPIB Director reports to the secretary to the cabinet. The CPIB’s operational impartiality has been protected by the political leaders whose “political self-denial” has maintained its de facto independence, which has sustained its impartial reputation and popular legitimacy.176 Second, the CPIB adopts a “total approach to enforcement” and deals with both major and minor cases of public and private sector corruption, as well as “both giver and receiver of bribes” and other crimes uncovered in the investigation of corruption complaints.177 Unlike other Southeast Asian countries, Singapore’s low level of corruption can also be attributed to its “strictly competitive and open access procurement policy for many years.” By contrast, competition in public procurement in many Southeast Asian countries are “seriously undermined” by bribery, cronyism, nepotism, collusion and fraud.178 The third and most important reason for the CPIB’s success is its impartial enforcement of the POCA. This means that anyone found guilty of a corruption offence is punished regardless of his or her position, status, or political affiliation. In other words, unlike some countries, corruption is not used as a weapon by the government against its political opponents in Singapore.179 In sum, the CPIB’s effectiveness in minimising corruption is reflected in Singapore’s consistently high performance on the six indicators of the perceived extent of corruption in 2014 as shown in Table 9. Three findings of the 2013 public perceptions survey of 1,016 Singapore citizens commissioned by the CPIB provide further evidence of the CPIB’s effectiveness. First, 90 per cent of the respondents believe that Singapore is much better or better than most countries in the world in controlling corruption. Second, 72 per cent of them strongly agree or agree that the CPIB has done well in solving corruption cases. Third,

77 per cent of the respondents indicate that the CPIB is effective in maintaining a low level of corruption in Singapore.180 Hong Kong SAR, China Corruption was normalised in Hong Kong SAR, China before the establishment of the ICAC in February 1974. According to Bertrand de Speville, a former ICAC commissioner, “corruption was deeply rooted, widespread, generally tolerated and, in some sectors, highly organised.” All government departments were infected with corruption, especially the police, customs and excise service, immigration department, fire and ambulance services, and the prison service. Corruption was also a problem in the housing, public works, education and health departments.181 Hong Kong SAR, China provided “a fertile soil for corruption to flourish” because the rapid population increase during 1945-1974 severely strained the provision of social services and food, housing, water, schools, health care and other services were in short supply. Furthermore, the immigrants from mainland China were encouraged to pay bribes to the police and other civil servants to avoid being harassed by them. The government’s monopoly and regulation of various activities and the discretion given to those civil servants in charge provided many opportunities for corruption. 182 As Hong Kong SAR, China was also a British colony, an ACB was created as a special unit within the CID of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force (RHKPF) in 1948 to deal with the investigation and prosecution of corruption cases.183 The police was the most corrupt government department184 because “daily extensive contact with the public provided ample opportunity” for policemen to be involved in corrupt practices.185 Three reasons were provided by Jiao for the rampant police corruption during the early days of the RHKPF. First, prostitution, gambling and drugs flourished in Hong Kong SAR, China and provided police officers with many opportunities for corruption. Second, the poorly paid police officers supplemented their income by accepting bribes from the owners of brothels and gambling dens. Third, syndicated police corruption thrived in Hong Kong SAR, China, because the British colonial government accorded low priority to crime control and tolerated the alliance between the police and the triads.186 The ACB reviewed the POCO in 1968 and recommended a scrutiny of the anticorruption legislation of Singapore and Ceylon (known as Sri Lanka today). Accordingly, a study team visited Singapore during the same year to examine how its anti-corruption laws worked in practice. The study team was impressed with the CPIB’s independence and attributed Singapore’s success in combating corruption to the CPIB’s independence from the 180

These survey findings are provided by the CPIB’s Deputy Director (Planning, Policy and Corporate Relations) by email to the author on November 20, 2015. 181 Bertrand de Speville, Hong Kong: Policy Initiatives against Corruption (Paris: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1997), p. 11. 182 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 183 Kuan Hsin-Chi, “Anti-corruption legislation in Hong Kong – A history,” in Rance P.L. Lee (ed.), Corruption and its Control in Hong Kong: Situations up to the late Seventies (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1981), p. 24. 184 Palmier, The Control of Bureaucratic Corruption, p. 123. 185 de Speville, Hong Kong, p. 14. 186 Allan Y. Jiao, The Police in Hong Kong: A Contemporary View (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007), p. 194.

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police.187 However, the British colonial government in Hong Kong did not support the creation of an independent ACA for three reasons: the adverse effects on police morale, the difficulties in recruiting and training an independent team of expert investigators, and the need for coordination with other departments in the RHKPF related to anti-corruption investigations.188 The RHKPF did not accept the study team’s recommendation of setting up an independent ACA outside its jurisdiction and suggested instead that the ACB be given a chance to prove its effectiveness with its upgrading into the Anti-Corruption Office (ACO) with the enactment of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance (POBO) in May 1971.189 However, the escape of a corruption suspect, Chief Superintendent of Police, Peter F. Godber, on 8 June 1973, to Britain angered the public and undermined the ACO’s credibility. The government reacted by appointing a Commission of Inquiry chaired by Sir Alastair BlairKerr to investigate the circumstances that enabled Godber to leave Hong Kong and to evaluate the POBO’s effectiveness.190 Sir Alastair dealt with the issue of the ACO’s independence by indicating that the arguments for retaining the ACO within the RHKPF were “largely organisational” and the arguments for removing the ACO were “largely political and psychological.” The governor, Sir Murray MacLehose, accepted Sir Alastair’s advice of considering public opinion and decided for political and psychological reasons to establish a new ACA that was independent of the RHKPF. Thus, the revelation of Godber’s corrupt activities and the unfavourable publicity of his escape to Britain was the catalyst that made the governor accept the risk of breaking up the RHKPF’s control over the investigation of corruption. Governor MacLehose’s decision was a path-breaking one because his predecessors and previous committees had deferred to the police mainly because they feared a collapse of police morale if the control of corruption was transferred to an independent agency.191 Accordingly, the ICAC was established on 15 February 1974 with the enactment of the ICAC Ordinance and was entrusted with these functions: “to root out corruption and to restore public confidence in the Government.”192 The ICAC was provided with adequate budget and personnel to perform its functions effectively. It began in 1974 with 369 personnel and a budget of HK$16,108,152.193 However, 40 years later, the ICAC’s budget has increased by 58 times to HK$937.12 million and its number of personnel rose by nearly four times to 1,358 in 2014.194 187

Hong Kong SAR, China is the fifth least corrupt territory in the Asia-Pacific region after New Zealand, Singapore, Australia and Japan as it is ranked 17 th among 175 countries with a score of 74 on Transparency International’s CPI in 2014. Why has Hong Kong SAR, China succeeded in minimising corruption after the ICAC’s formation in February 1974? A former ICAC commissioner, Fanny Law, has identified these four strengths of Hong Kong’s “sound integrity system”: a strong political will to curb corruption; a common integrity framework for civil servants, politicians, judicial officers, and staff of the watchdog agencies; a vibrant civil society with independent media and nongovernment organisations; and an independent ICAC with a comprehensive anti-corruption programme.195 De Speville has attributed the ICAC’s effectiveness to five factors. First, the most important factor is the government’s recognition that corruption is a serious problem and the provision of adequate resources to deal with it. Second, to gain public confidence, the ICAC must be unimpeachable and its staff “must have unblemished integrity” and be “dedicated and effective anti-graft fighters.” Third, the ICAC has formulated and implemented a carefully designed long-term three-pronged strategy, which focuses on investigation, prevention, and education. Fourth, the ICAC has succeeded in gaining public confidence by ensuring that all corruption reports, no matter how small, are investigated. Finally, the ICAC is effective because it ensures confidentiality to those reporting corruption offences. In short, the ICAC is effective because of “a combination of factors that collectively produced an advantageous environment in which to counter corruption.”196 In his evaluation of Hong Kong SAR, China’s integrity system, Cheung contends that the ICAC’s three-pronged strategy of investigation, prevention and education has contributed to its success in combating corruption because it has (1) inculcated fear among corrupt offenders by enforcing the anti-corruption laws impartially; (2) reduced the opportunities for corruption by streamlining procedures and management processes to prevent corruption; and (3) changed the population’s attitudes toward corruption through community education and publicity.197 Thus, the critical factor responsible for the ICAC’s success is the political will of the government in Hong Kong SAR, China to recognise corruption as a problem and its commitment to solve it. De Speville has identified the government’s decision to tackle the problem of corruption as “the sine qua non of effective action.” Furthermore, the government must also be willing “to provide adequate funding, realising that overcoming corruption will be expensive.”198 Botswana

Corruption is normalised in Africa but Botswana is an exception and “an oasis in a desert of corruption.”199 As Botswana has “escaped economic and political catastrophe” it is viewed by other African countries to be “un-African.”200 Even though it is land-locked and rich in natural resources, especially diamonds, Botswana does not suffer from the resource-curse affecting other African countries like Angola, Zaire (Congo), Sierra Leone, or Nigeria because “there has been no civil war or intense infighting to control the revenues from diamonds.”201 Botswana’s case shows that even though it is land-locked and located in “a bad neighbourhood [which] makes development harder,” a good government can make a difference if it adopts “winning growth” strategies.202 When the British left Botswana in September 1966, there were only 12 kilometres of paved road, 22 Batswana university graduates, and 100 persons with secondary school education.203 Why is Botswana an African success story in combating corruption? Botswana was rocked by several corruption scandals in the early 1990s. In April 1991, a US$13 million corruption scandal involving a national contract to supply teaching materials and equipment for primary schools was exposed by a presidential commission. Eight months later, another presidential commission found the vice president and two ministers guilty of abusing their authority by acquiring land designated for community projects in villages outside the capital, Gaborone.204 The most famous scandal was discovered when Joseph Letsholo, the general manager of the Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC), was killed in a car accident in February 1992. Police officers investigating the accident found US$3,900 in cash in the car’s glove compartment. Further investigation revealed “a web of graft” as the police confiscated US$100,000 in cash from Letsholo’s personal safe at the BHC headquarters. The presidential commission of inquiry convened to investigate the BHC’s activities concluded in November 1992 that there was “no option but to find that these unbanked sums [of money] were the fruits of corruption” because Letsholo had accepted “large and regular bribes” for his personal investment programme.205 The commission found that “gross mismanagement and dishonesty” were responsible for the substantial loss in revenue at the BHC. Twelve persons were prosecuted for their involvement in the BHC scandal.206 In late 1993, the National Development Bank (NDB) of Botswana was on the verge of bankruptcy because of costly loan defaults by the president, several ministers and other 199

senior officials. Consequently, the NDB incurred huge losses and retrenched some employees. The NDB’s scandal, which resulted from a combination of “bad management and corruption,” eroded the popularity of the governing Botswana Democratic Party and enabled the opposition to win 13 seats in the 1994 national election. 207 These corruption scandals angered the public and in March 1992, some senior officials visited London to seek advice on combating corruption. Following the advice of British police experts, these officials consulted Graham Stockwell, the Deputy ICAC Commissioner in Hong Kong. When Stockwell retired from the ICAC in early 1993, he was invited by the Botswana government to evaluate its anti-corruption measures. He recommended the establishment of an ACA modelled on the ICAC and was later invited by the government to draft the necessary legislation and lead the new agency.208 The Corruption and Economic Crime Bill was read the second time on 11 July and passed on 25 July 1994. The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) was established on 5 September 1994 and adopted the ICAC’s three-pronged strategy of focusing on the investigation, prevention and education functions. The DCEC’s formation reflected the government’s commitment to address the growing problem of corruption arising from the four scandals in 1991 to 1993 to assuage the public anger and reassure foreign investors that their investments would be secure in Botswana.209 Table 10: Botswana’s Performance on the CPI and Control of Corruption, 1996-2014 Year

The CPI score ranges from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean) from 1998-2011. The CPI score was changed to 0 to 100 from 2012. Sources: Compiled from “Corruption Perceptions Index 1998-2014,” available at www.transparency.org; and “Worldwide Governance Indicators, 1996-2014,” available at www.info.worldbank.org/ governance/wgi/index.aspx#home. Table 10 shows that Botswana’s CPI score ranges from 5.4 in 2007 to 65 in 2012. Similarly, Botswana’s percentile rank on the Control of Corruption varies from 74.63 percentile rank in 1996 and 2002 to 85.85 in 2003. In his 1999 evaluation, Olowu indicated that the DCEC’s adequate funding enabled it to attract competent personnel to ensure its operational effectiveness, which was reflected in the 998 reports it investigated during 1994-1997. Through its extensive public education programme, the DCEC has also succeeded in highlighting corruption as a serious economic and social problem in Botswana.210 However, the number of corruption cases in Botswana has increased in recent years and the disturbing trend of some ministers charged with corruption refusing to resign has also been observed. Nevertheless, in spite of the recent perceived increase in corruption cases, corruption in Botswana “remains low when compared to other African countries, for it is not yet a way of life.”211 Botswana has performed better on three indicators than 27 other African countries on the African Global Corruption Barometer 2015, as shown in Table 11. Table 11: Botswana’s Performance on the African Global Corruption Barometer 2015 Survey Finding Proportion of respondents who paid a bribe during past 12 months Proportion of respondents who said that the current government was performing well in fighting corruption Proportion of respondents who agree that ordinary people can make a difference in the fight against corruption

Percentage 1% 54% 72%

Source: Coralie Pring, People and Corruption: Africa Survey 2015, Global Corruption Barometer (Berlin: Transparency International, 2015), pp. 38, 41 and 43. Why has Botswana succeeded in minimising corruption when other African countries have failed to do so? What lessons can other African countries learn from Botswana’s experience in combating corruption? The most important factor responsible for Botswana’s success in curbing corruption is the political will of its leaders and their commitment to good governance. Hope observes that Botswana’s “political leaders respect and uphold the rule of law,” “patrimonialism, nepotism, and tribalism are virtually non-existent,” and sound 210

Bamidele Olowu, “Corruption and Economic Crime in Africa: An Evaluation of the Botswana Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime,” International Journal of Public Sector Management, 12 (7) (1999): 609-610. 211 David Sebudubudu, “The Evolving State of Corruption and Anti-Corruption Debates in Botswana: Issues in Good Governance,” Background Paper on Botswana, Anti-Corruption Policies Revisited (Hamburg: German Institute of Global and Area Studies [GIGA], February 2014), p. 13.

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economic management is practised without state interventionist policies. 212 Indeed, the commitment of Botswana’s political leaders, especially Sir Seretse Khama, who was the founding president until his death in 1980, and his successor, Quett Masire,213 to democracy with political, economic and social rights for all citizens is an important prerequisite for sustainable good governance.214 The second factor accounting for Botswana’s success in combating corruption is its effective civil service. The civil service in Botswana is effective for three reasons. First, a positive legacy of British colonial rule is that civil servants are recruited and promoted on the basis of merit and not patronage. Second, unlike their counterparts in other African countries, Botswana civil servants are relatively well-paid and are “not preoccupied with the need to make ends meet and to engage in corrupt activities to do so.”215 Botswana was the only African country that was able to pay higher salaries for its civil servants during 19902001. Consequently, the US$40,235 salary of Botswana’s top civil servant is higher that the US$12,908 salary of his Ugandan counterpart, and US$3,373 salary of his Ghanaian counterpart.216 Finally, civil servants in Botswana are well-trained as the government’s commitment to training is reflected in the adequate resources allocated for training and the creation of training institutions.217 Third, Botswana’s experience in combating corruption illustrates the importance of relying on an independent ACA, which is well-funded and adequately staffed, and provided with sufficient operational autonomy. Olowu contends that an independent ACA like the DCEC is “crucial for the success of anti-corruption programmes in many African countries” because it can “stimulate or press for change in other institutions such as the courts, the legislature and the Attorney General's Office in focusing their energies on anti-corruption issues.”218 In assessing whether Botswana’s case is exceptional, Theobald and Williams highlight its four unique features: Botswana is the second richest African country without a debt servicing problem, with a small population of 1.5 million in 1999 and has not experienced military rule unlike many African countries.219 Consequently, they believe that the prospects for replicating the DCEC in those African countries which “do not enjoy similar levels of economic and political stability and require substantial donor assistance” are not promising.220 However, Charlton argues that Botswana’s case shows that competitive party politics does not necessarily lead to the “spoils politics and massive corruption” in Nigeria. Botswana’s case also demonstrates that petty corruption will not “escalate upwards” when there is no elite participation in corruption. If Botswana can “successfully control and 212

effectively limit elite corruption,” Charlton believes that “it may well technically be possible” for similar controls to be introduced in other African countries “IF such an option” were chosen by the “relevant ruling (and consuming) elites.”221 In other words, other African countries can replicate Botswana’s success in combating corruption if their political leaders and citizens have the political will and capacity to do so. Georgia Table 9 shows that Georgia is ranked below Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, China and Botswana on the CPI and Control of Corruption indicator. However, as will be shown below, Georgia’s improved performance on these indicators after the implementation of the 2004 reforms is much more dramatic than the other three countries. According to Simis, “a reckless orgy of corruption was raging almost openly in Georgia.”222 In 2003, corruption permeated almost all aspects of life in Georgia, especially in the citizens’ interaction with the traffic police and other public agencies. The World Bank has provided this description of the normalisation of corruption in Georgia: Most other government services were also rife with corruption. Bribes were needed to get a passport, register property, start a business, or build a home. Entrance to state universities required bribes, and additional payments helped secure good grades and even degrees; mastery of subject matter was optional. Citizens paid officials to obtain driver’s licenses (knowing how to drive was not required) and pass vehicle inspections. Restaurants bribed inspectors not to arbitrarily close enterprises that met sanitary standards and to turn a blind eye to enterprises that did not. … Many corrupt government officials had been enriching themselves for years.223 The normalised corruption in Georgia in 2003 was reflected in its CPI score of 1.8 and 32.20 percentile rank on the Control of Corruption indicator for the same year, as shown in Table 12. The Rose Revolution, which began with the widespread street protests against corruption, crime and deteriorating public services in late November 2003, resulted in the initiation of comprehensive anti-corruption reforms by the new government in January 2004.224 The effectiveness of these reforms is clearly manifested in the subsequent improvement of Georgia’s CPI scores and Control of Corruption percentile rank from 20042014. According to Philippe H. Le Houerou, the World Bank’s Vice-President for Europe and Central Asia Region, “Georgia’s experience shows that the vicious cycle of ostensibly

endemic corruption can be broken, and—if sustained with appropriate institutional reforms—can be turned into a virtuous cycle.”225 Why has Georgia succeeded in minimising corruption after introducing anti-corruption reforms in 2004? What lessons can other countries afflicted with normalised corruption learn from Georgia’s experience? The World Bank team analysed Georgia’s anti-corruption reforms and identified ten “tenets of success” to be learnt from their successful implementation. The first and most important factor was the strong political will of Georgia’s political leaders, especially President Mikheil Saakashvili, who was elected by 96 per cent of the voters in the 2004 presidential election to eliminate corruption. Second, the new leaders established their credibility by making high-profile arrests of corrupt officials and criminals to demonstrate their zero tolerance for corruption. Table 12: Georgia’s Performance on the CPI and Control of Corruption, 1996-2014 Year

The CPI score ranges from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean) from 1998-2011. The CPI score was changed to 0 to 100 from 2012. Sources: Compiled from “Corruption Perceptions Index, 1999-2014,” available at www.transparency.org; and “Worldwide Governance Indicators, 1996-2014,” available at www.info.worldbank.org/ governance/wgi/index.aspx#home.

Third, the government initiated “a frontal assault” or “blitzkrieg approach” on corruption by introducing comprehensive reforms in various sectors, including traffic police, tax, customs, electricity distribution, higher education, issuance of identity documents, property and business registration, and municipal services. Fourth, the government also recruited new qualified and well-educated staff and paid them well to implement the reforms. Fifth, opportunities for corruption were also reduced by limiting contact between citizens and civil servants and cutting red tape.226 The sixth lesson was the adoption of unconventional methods, which included the reliance on a special fund financed from external sources to pay for higher salaries and bonuses for a short period. Furthermore, corrupt officials and tax cheats were released from jail if they admitted their guilt and paid heavy fines.227 Perhaps, the most radical reform was the firing of 16,000 traffic police officers and their replacement by 2,300 new officers a few months later because “the system was so corrupt … from top to bottom, that any attempt to introduce new recruits would fail, as new officers would soon succumb to the corrosive atmosphere of corruption.”228 To further reduce police corruption, the number of police officers was reduced from 63,000 in 2003 to 27,000 in 2011.229 The seventh factor was the importance of unity of purpose and close coordination which was facilitated by the core team of policy makers led by the president. Cabinet and ad hoc meetings were held frequently to ensure coordination in the implementation of the anti-corruption reforms in the different sectors. The necessity of learning from the experiences of other countries in combating corruption and adapting relevant practices to local conditions is the eighth reason for Georgia’s success in corruption control. For example, the US practice of plea bargaining was adopted for prosecuting high-profile corruption cases. Ninth, technology was also harnessed by the government to reduce contact between civil servants and citizens by relying on the electronic filing of taxes, electronic payments for services, and traffic cameras. The final lesson drawn from Georgia’s successful anti-corruption reforms is the strategic use of communication to convey the president’s commitment in tackling corruption and the media’s role of investigating corruption scandals and publicising the arrests of criminals, tax cheats, and corrupt officials.230 In sum, Georgia’s success story gives hope to policy makers in other countries that corruption can be defeated and “destroys the myth that corruption is cultural.”231 Summary The comparison of the policy contexts of the four countries in Table 13 shows that they have small populations, ranging from 2.1 million for Botswana to 7.3 million for Hong Kong SAR, China. Second, there is diversity in terms of their land area between the small city226

states of Singapore and Hong Kong, and the larger countries of Georgia and Botswana. Third, Botswana, Hong Kong SAR, China and Singapore were colonised by the British, and Georgia by Russia. Fourth, the four countries also differ in terms of their GDP per capita, which varies from US$3,699 for Georgia to US$56,319 for Singapore. Finally, the governance levels of these countries vary from 538.5 percentile rank for Hong Kong SAR, China, 529.8 percentile rank for Singapore, 434 percentile rank for Botswana, and 382.4 percentile rank for Georgia. Table 13: Policy Contexts of Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, China, Botswana and Georgia in 2014 Country

Land area (sq km)

Population (in millions)

Colonial legacy

GDP per capita

Botswana Georgia Hong Kong SAR, China Singapore

582,000 70,000 1,075

2.1 4.5 7.3

British Russian British

US$7,505 US$3,699 US$39,871

Governance total percentile ranka 434.0 382.4 538.5

718

5.5

British

US$56,319

529.8

a

This is based on the total percentile ranks of the World Bank’s six governance indicators of voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence/terrorism, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption in 2014. Sources: Economist, Pocket World in Figures 2015 Edition (London: Profile Books, 2014), pp. 250-253; Klaus Schwab (ed.), The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016 (Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2015), pp. 121, 176, 194, 320; and http://info.worldbank.org/gov ernance/wgi/index.aspx#reports. The analysis of why these countries have succeeded in combating corruption shows that their anti-corruption reforms were triggered by particular events or corruption scandals. In Singapore, the CPIB was formed in October 1952 as a result of the investigation of the Opium Hijacking scandal in October 1951. Hong Kong’s ICAC was created in February 1974 following the escape of corruption suspect Peter Godber to the United Kingdom in June 1973 to avoid arrest. The DCEC was established in September 1994 in Botswana because of the exposure of the four corruption scandals in 1991-1993. In Georgia, the Rose Revolution in November 2003 led to the election of President Mikheil Saakashvili in January 2004 and the implementation of comprehensive anti-corruption reforms. However, in all the four countries the critical factor responsible for their success in combating corruption is the strong political will of their political leaders, which was clearly demonstrated in the establishment of single, well-funded, and adequately staffed ACAs like the ICAC in Hong Kong, the CPIB in Singapore, and the DCEC in Botswana. In Georgia, President Eduard Shevardnadze established the Anti-Corruption Policy Coordination Council (ACPCC) on 13 April 2001 to monitor and coordinate the implementation of the measures of the National Anti-Corruption Programme. The ACPCC’s formation was followed by the creation of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on 8 May 2001 to provide “organisational,

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technical, expert and informational support” to the ACPCC.232 However, the ACPCC and ACB were ineffective because of President Shevardnadze’s lack of political will in curbing corruption. What made the difference were the comprehensive anti-corruption reforms introduced by his successor, President Saakashvili, who was more committed to minimising corruption in Georgia. The governments of the four countries are committed not only to minimising corruption, but also to ensuring good governance. Corruption is closely related to governance in two ways. As the independent variable, corruption is an important factor determining the quality of governance in a country, which is the dependent variable. From this perspective, curbing corruption constitutes a necessary but insufficient prerequisite for good governance. Conversely, if corruption is the dependent variable, poor governance is an important independent variable. In other words, corruption is not only an important cause of poor governance, but is also a serious consequence of poor governance in a country.233 Thus, a well-governed country is less likely to suffer from corruption if the government implements impartially the anti-corruption measures. On the other hand, if a country is poorly governed, it is more likely to be afflicted by normalised corruption because the government lacks the political will to implement impartially the anti-corruption measures. V. The Way Forward: Can Normalised Corruption be Minimised? Laurence Cockcroft, a Founder of Transparency International, contends that even though “the conditions for real progress in rolling back corruption are tough [and] the fight will not be easily won,” it is still necessary to combat corruption “ruthlessly” because “it is a force which drives poverty, inequality, dysfunctional democracy and global insecurity.”234 In the same vein, Chayes believes that “acute, abusive government corruption prompts extreme responses and thus represents a mortal threat to [global] security.”235 The difficult struggle against normalised corruption is captured accurately by Cockcroft’s description of corruption as a “snake which will frequently respond with poison, and will only die with repeated attack” and “only if severed at the head.”236 Indeed, according to Caiden, it is difficult to combat corruption in countries with normalised corruption because corrupt individuals are “normal people” and “on the surface, everything looks so normal.”237 Failure of anti-corruption strategies The high level of perceived corruption in many countries around the world today is a reflection of the failure of their anti-corruption strategies during the past six decades. 232

Ayittey laments that during the post-colonial period, “corrupt African governments have combated corruption half-heartedly with various ad hoc measures,” including probes, commissions of enquiry, and even execution by firing squad, but “these efforts have got them nowhere.”238 Many ACAs in African countries “lack autonomy, face political interference, have poor funding and poor institutional capacity.”239 The findings of the African Global Corruption Barometer in 2015 presents “a bleak picture” because 58 per cent of the 43,143 respondents in 28 African countries reported that corruption had increased during the past year and many of them identified 18 governments as “fully failing to address corruption” effectively.240 In Latin America, Facetti found that bribery was prevalent in those countries which do not enforce the regulations prohibiting illegal activities in the renewable resources sector and other sectors. To reduce corruption, he recommended that “many measures should be taken at the same time and in different areas” to improve regulatory systems, strengthen adaptation capacities, and enhancing the participation of stakeholders.241 A regional assessment of corruption risks in 25 European countries found that the ACAs in 12 Southern European countries were “weak players in the fight against corruption.”242 Table 14: CPI 2014 Scores of 175 Countries by Region CPI score 90 – 100 80 – 89 70 – 79 60 – 69 50 – 59 40 – 49 30 – 39 20 – 29 10 – 19 0–9 Total

The analysis of the CPI 2014 scores of 175 countries by region in Table 14 shows that of the 46 countries (26.3 per cent) with CPI scores of 30 – 39, 15 are from Africa and 14 from the Americas. Similarly, among the 35 countries (20 per cent) with CPI scores of 20 – 29, 15 are African countries and 12 countries are from the Asia-Pacific region. Overall, only 54 countries (30.9 per cent) have CPI scores above 50, with the other 121 countries (69.1 per cent) having CPI scores below 50. Africa is the worst performing region with 44 of its 48 countries with CPI scores below 50, followed by the Asia-Pacific with 24 countries, the Americas with 21 countries, and Europe and the Middle East, with 16 countries each. In short, the low CPI scores of 121 countries in 2014 reflect the normalised corruption in these countries and the ineffectiveness of their anti-corruption measures. The lack of political will is the most important reason why success in combating corruption has eluded many countries in spite of their anti-corruption efforts during the past six decades. This limitation is one of the ten major flaws in curbing corruption because politicians “promise to tackle corruption, which is invariably the fault of their predecessors, but when [they are] in a position to do something about it, somehow they fall strangely quiet and perpetuate the very corrupt practices they once condemned.”243 Having anticorruption laws is necessary but insufficient because these laws must be enforced impartially, without fear or favour, by adequately staffed and funded independent ACAs or other watchdog agencies in those countries which do not rely on ACAs. It is also important that political leaders relying on ACAs should resist the temptation to use corruption as a weapon against their political opponents. While Holmes agrees that the success of anticorruption measures depends on political will, he argues convincingly that political leaders must “not only be committed, i.e. have the political will to combat corruption, but must also have the capacity to implement their will.”244 Furthermore, the political will and capacity to control corruption must not be confined to the political leaders only but also shared widely by civil servants, the private sector, CSOs, the media, and citizens. Many countries need substantial doses of political will and capacity to implement impartially comprehensive reforms to address the causes of corruption and to sustain the implementation of these reforms over a long period of time. However, this is a tall order given the scarcity and fragility of political will. De Speville has aptly described the fragility of political will of a new political leader as “a candle flame” and stressed the importance of nurturing and protecting it from “being extinguished by any passing political breeze.” 245 Apart from the lack of political will and capacity, the anti-corruption strategies of many countries have focused on the symptoms of corruption instead of addressing the five causes of corruption analysed in Section III above. Anti-corruption campaigns which fail to address the causes of corruption are ineffective, as illustrated by the current anti-corruption campaign in China, which has lasted for three years. This campaign is ineffective because it has only focused on the cultural practices of guanxi and gift-giving by curbing official extravagance on cars, banquets, and overseas trips without addressing the other causes of

corruption in China.246 This limitation was acknowledged by Wang Qishan, the CCDI’s secretary, in October 2014 when he indicated that “it’s necessary to address the symptoms of corruption before treating its root causes.”247 However, after three years, the campaign is still dealing with the symptoms of corruption without addressing the other causes. The campaign’s second limitation is the selective enforcement of the anti-corruption laws because corrupt CCP members are protected from investigation and prosecution by the SPP as they are disciplined instead by the CCDI.248 In view of the contextual differences among the countries around the world and the fact that the causes of corruption are country specific, Shah cautions that adopting “onesize-fits-all approaches” to countries which vary widely in the incidence of corruption and quality of governance will fail because “policy makers need to understand the local circumstances that encourage or permit public and private actors to be corrupt.”249 This means that there is no “one best approach” to combating corruption in a country because “unfortunately, every method outlined has its drawbacks.” 250 As mentioned earlier, the success of ACAs like Singapore’s CPIB and Hong Kong’s ICAC has led to the proliferation of single ACAs in many countries. However, similar success has eluded the ACAs in many countries because of the lack of political will and capacity, and their unfavourable governance environment. Those governments that are committed to minimising the adverse consequences of normalised corruption should rely on both topdown and bottom-up approaches and supplement their emphasis on the compliance strategy with the integrity strategy. Holmes has recommended a “smart anti-corruption” approach, which combines “stick, carrot, and other approaches” with the “mix” varying “from country to country, according to the culture, the type of political and economic system, and the resources available.”251 Indeed, as Shah has advised, “for programs to work, they must identify the type of corruption they are targeting and tackle the underlying, country-specific causes, or ‘drivers,’ of dysfunctional governance.”252 Suggestions for enhancing anti-corruption measures Notwithstanding the dismal record of anti-corruption efforts in many countries, the experiences of Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, China, Botswana and Georgia discussed in Section IV indicate that combating normalised corruption effectively is not an impossible 246

The other four causes of corruption in China are: low salaries, red tape, low probability of detecting and punishing corrupt offenders, and decentralisation. For a detailed analysis, see Quah, Minimizing Corruption in China, pp. 41-56. 247 Quoted in Sun Xiaobo, “Institutionalising anti-corruption a vital task,” Global Times, October 19, 2014. 248 Jon S.T. Quah, Hunting the Corrupt “Tigers” and “Flies” in China: An Evaluation of Xi Jinping’s AntiCorruption Campaign (November 2012 to March 2015) (Baltimore, MD: Carey School of Law, University of Maryland, 2015), pp. 84-85. Corrupt officials who are cooperative and return their illegal income are punished less severely. Furthermore, when there are many corrupt officials, only those seriously corrupt officials are punished to avoid paralysing the operations of the city or local government. See Yongshun Cai, State and Agents in China: Disciplining Government Officials (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015), pp. 130-131. 249 Anwar Shah, “Tailoring the Fight against Corruption to Country Circumstances,” in Anwar Shah (ed.), Performance Accountability and Combating Corruption (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007), p. 236. 250 Holmes, Corruption, p. 122. 251 Ibid., p. 107. 252 Shah, “Tailoring the Fight against Corruption to Country Circumstances,” p. 234.

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dream if the government and other stakeholders possess the political will and capacity to do so. What can be done by governments and other stakeholders to enhance the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures? Five suggestions are provided below. 1. Addressing the causes of normalised corruption It seems obvious that to tackle the problem of normalised corruption effectively, appropriate measures must be taken to address its causes. This limitation cannot be explained by the lack of knowledge on the causes of normalised corruption because of the wealth of research on this topic.253 There are three reasons for the failure of many governments to address the causes of corruption in their anti-corruption strategies. First, Levitt and Dubner explain why it is easier to deal with the symptoms of corruption than with addressing its root causes: But the big problems that society cares about – crime and disease and political dysfunction, for instance – are more complicated than that. Their root causes are often not so nearby, or obvious, or palatable. So rather than address their root causes, we often spend billions of dollars treating the symptoms and are left to grimace when the problem remains. … Alas, fixing corruption is a lot harder than airlifting food. … But when you are dealing with root causes, at least you know you are fighting the real problem and not just boxing with shadows.254 Second, Diamond has attributed the failures of group decision-making to these factors: (1) the group fails to anticipate a problem before it arrives; (2) the group fails to perceive the problem after it arrives; (3) after perceiving the problem, the group fails to try to solve it; and (4) the group tries to solve the problem but fails to do so.255 Applying his analysis to the failure of anti-corruption efforts in many countries around the world, the third and fourth factors are particularly relevant. Diamond contends that the group fails to solve a problem (in this case, normalised corruption) because: The perpetrators know that they will often get away with their bad behaviour, especially if there is no law against it or if the law isn’t effectively enforced. They feel safe because the perpetrators are typically concentrated (few in number) and highly motivated by the prospect of reaping big, certain, and immediate profits, while the losses are spread over large numbers of individuals. That gives the losers little motivation to go to the hassle of fighting back, because each loser loses

253

See for example, Daniel Treisman, The Causes of Corruption: A Cross-National Study (Los Angeles, CA: Department of Political Science, University of California at Los Angeles, 2000); Daniel Treisman, “What have We Learned about the Causes of Corruption from Ten Years of Cross-National Empirical Research?” Annual Review of Political Science, 10 (2007): 211-244; and Susan Rose-Ackerman, Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences, and Reform (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 254 Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Think Like a Freak: How to Think Smarter about Almost Everything (London: Allen Lane, 2014), pp. 66-67 and 70. 255 Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive (London: Penguin Group, 2005), p. 421.

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only a little and would receive only small, uncertain, distant profits even from successfully undoing the minority grab.256 In other words, corrupt governments, political leaders and other stakeholders are not motivated to initiate reforms which address the causes of normalised corruption in order to protect their vested interests and maintain the status quo. The third and most troubling reason why many governments and political leaders fail to address the causes of corruption in their anti-corruption strategies is because they are not really concerned about minimising the normalised corruption in their countries. In their book, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, Acemoglu and Robinson contend that “poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty. They get it wrong not by mistake or ignorance but on purpose.”257 In the same vein, I would argue that normalised corruption in many countries has not improved because their political leaders have made decisions which facilitate rather than curb corruption. Indeed, corrupt politicians, civil servants, business persons, and citizens in countries where corruption is normalised will resist and subvert the implementation of comprehensive anti-corruption reforms to protect their vested interests. From the analysis of the causes of normalised corruption in Section III, it is difficult to reduce petty corruption among low-ranking civil servants if they are paid “starvation wages,” an appropriate description coined by poorly paid junior officials in the Philippines. If African civil servants are paid adequate salaries to maintain a decent living standard, they are unlikely to engage in corrupt practices or seek additional employment. Even though civil service salaries have improved in recent years, the “state of remuneration in many African countries leaves much to be desired.”258 Accordingly, to minimise corruption, African countries should improve the salaries of civil servants to “improve their morale and dedication to work and to prevent moonlighting and the temptation to subvert the public good through corrupt practices.”259 Cumbersome administrative procedures and excessive red tape compel business firms to bribe poorly paid officials to expedite their applications for permits or approve other requests. Their low salaries make civil servants “ready accomplices in such corrupt acts.”260 Corruption can also be curbed by reducing red tape and unnecessary regulations as the experience of the Republic of Korea has shown. Corruption is viewed as a “low risk, high reward” activity by citizens in those countries where corruption is normalised because of the low probability of detection and punishment of corrupt offenders. Poorly paid civil servants would not accept bribes if they are likely to be caught and punished for their misdeeds. Accordingly, to minimise normalised corruption in these countries, the anti-corruption laws must be enforced impartially by the ACAs and other agencies by investigating and punishing those found guilty of corrupt offences, regardless of their status, position, or political affiliation. 256

Finally, as guanxi, gift-giving, family ties and other cultural values encourage the population to tolerate or engage in corrupt practices, two measures must be introduced to tackle this problem. First, the ACAs and CSOs in these countries should collaborate to conduct talks on the adverse consequences of corruption for the citizens to reduce their tolerance for corrupt practices. The influence of cultural values on corruption can be reversed by demonstrating to the population that the negative consequences of corruption outweigh the benefits. For example, religious leaders in Afghanistan have included anticorruption messages after Friday prayers to “counteract long-practiced ways that promote corruption in everyday life” by enhancing public awareness and providing citizens with practical ways to resist corruption.261 Second, civil servants must be recruited and promoted on the basis of merit and not patronage, family ties or connections, to prevent nepotism. Regulations prohibiting civil servants from receiving gifts must be strictly enforced to prevent bribery. Vote-buying during elections can be curbed by punishing those found guilty of this offence. These measures exist in many countries but are not enforced impartially, or at best, selectively. In short, without substantive reforms to address the causes of corruption in those countries plagued by normalised corruption, their anti-corruption efforts will continue to be ineffective. Corruption becomes normalised in these countries because the existing anticorruption measures have failed to address the causes of corruption. The analysis of the success stories of Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, China, Botswana and Georgia shows that minimising normalised corruption is not an elusive dream. Thanks to the untiring efforts of the “corruption detectives” who uncover “the underlying causes of corruption” and recommend appropriate anti-corruption measures to reduce the opportunities for corruption and enhance transparency and accountability,262 there is now a substantial body of knowledge on the causes of normalised corruption, which policy makers can distil from to enhance the effectiveness of their anti-corruption strategies. What appears to be lacking, however, is the political will of these policy makers to do so. 2. Relying on a single independent ACA instead of multiple ACAs What can the governments and citizens in countries where corruption is normalised do if they wish to improve the status quo? They have three options. The first option, which should be avoided, is not to follow the path taken by those countries which have continued to rely for many years on ineffective multiple ACAs to curb corruption. For example, the reliance on multiple ACAs in the Philippines has resulted in “resource and effort-dilution in the anti-corruption efforts due to duplication, layering and turf wars.”263 There is also no coordination or cooperation among these ACAs, which compete for recognition, staff, and resources because they are under-staffed and poorly funded. The overlapping jurisdictions 261

of these ACAs not only diffuse anti-corruption efforts but also result in “poor coordination in policy and program implementation, weak management and wastage of resources.”264 The second option, which is practised by Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, is to enhance good governance by strengthening existing institutions in these countries without creating an ACA. As mentioned earlier, these countries have relied on such institutions as the Chancellor of Justice, Ombudsman, Auditor-General’s Office, Public Accounts Committee, and Serious Fraud Office, to minimise corruption effectively without establishing ACAs. The third option of combating corruption was initiated by the CPIB’s formation in Singapore in October 1952, and emulated by Hong Kong’s ICAC in February 1974. Their success in curbing corruption spawned the emergence of many single ACAs in other countries, including the DCEC in Botswana in September 1994. However, unlike the CPIB, ICAC and DCEC, the ACAs in many countries are ineffective in combating corruption because of the lack of political will and capacity as well as their unfavourable policy contexts. In other words, the strategy of relying on a single ACA to curb corruption in a country will only be effective if the incumbent government provides it with sufficient legal powers, budget, personnel, and operational autonomy. 3. Nurturing “islands of development” or “pockets of effectiveness” In his book, Development Planning, Waterston identifies the administrative obstacles to planning and suggests that the “existing nuclei of administrative skills” in a country should be developed to deal with these obstacles.265 Extrapolating from Waterston’s notion of “a nucleus of strength,” Thurber has developed the concept of “islands of development” which refers to those individuals and organisations in a country with the potential for development. These “islands of development” are characterised by administrative leadership or “bureaucratic entrepreneurship,” institution building and transformation, and inter-organisational relationships for developmental goals.266 Thurber contends that the “islands of development” approach is beneficial for Latin American countries because it “looks for nuclei of strength, especially organisational strength, wherever they exist” and “seeks to capitalise on and maximise the effectiveness of the elements that are forwardlooking, energetic, and civic-minded.”267 More recently, on the basis of his research in Nigeria, Roll has focused on identifying “pockets of effectiveness” or those “public organisations which deliver public services relatively effectively in contexts of largely ineffective government” and normalised corruption.268 A public organisation in Nigeria was a “pocket of effectiveness” only if it was 264

effective in providing public services for the public good for at least three years. Based on these criteria and available data, a group of experts has identified seven Nigerian public organisations as “pockets of effectiveness.”269 The two outstanding “pockets of effectiveness” in Nigeria are the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP). 270 The reasons for their effectiveness are: 1. Recruitment of staff on the basis of merit, integrity and commitment: Apart from qualifications and merit, commitment to the agency’s mission and proven integrity are also important criteria for selecting candidates for leadership positions at both agencies. 2. Training and performance incentives: After recruiting capable, honest and motivated staff, the two agencies provide relevant training and necessary resources and equipment for them to perform their duties effectively. Both agencies have succeeded in recruiting skilled and committed professionals because of their higher salaries and better welfare benefits compared to their counterparts in other public agencies. 3. Disciplinary control: Both agencies impose strict disciplinary control to prevent embezzlement of public funds and corruption, which are endemic in Nigeria’s public sector. Corruption in the NAPTIP is minimised by paying adequate salaries, providing the staff with the necessary resources for performing their duties, and relying on an internal corruption unit to deal with staff members suspected of corruption and dismissing them if they are found guilty. The policy of zero tolerance for corruption in the NAFDAC is enforced by severe sanctions and the encouragement of internal whistle-blowing with whistle-blowers being rewarded with promotion or training opportunities abroad. 4. Inclusive leadership: The heads of the NAFDAC and NAPTIP have shown “outstanding inclusive leadership and management skills.”271 The ability of the NAFDAC and NAPTIP to implement successfully a strong anticorruption regime in Nigeria where corruption is normalised must be recognised. As corruption was widespread in the “old” NAFDAC, Dora Akunyili, the Director-General from Paper No. 128, 2011), p. 1. Other terms used for exceptional organisations are: “pockets of productivity,” “pockets of efficiency,” and “islands of excellence.” See Michael Roll, “Introduction,” in Michael Roll (ed.), The Politics of Public Sector Performance: Pockets of Effectiveness in Developing Countries (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 1. 269 Roll, The State that Works, p. 2. 270 Ibid., pp. 4-6. 271 Ibid., pp. 11-13.

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2001-2008, practised “leadership by example” and dismissed her brother-in-law, a staff member, when he was found guilty of bribery.272 Internal whistle-blowing in the NAFDAC is encouraged and whistle-blowers are rewarded if the reports were confirmed. The NAFDAC has also formed an internal Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit in 2008 to reinforce its anti-corruption measures.273 As human trafficking is a serious problem in Nigeria, the NAPTIP’s effectiveness in rescuing victims and convicting human traffickers is surprising in a country where the public sector is ineffective and corruption is normalised. The NAPTIP’s founding Executive Secretary, Carol Ndaguba, has discouraged staff members from engaging in corrupt activities with these four measures: paying them a higher salary; providing them with the support and funds required for performing their duties; those staff members suspected of corruption are investigated by teams instead of individual officers; and those found guilty are dismissed. Consequently, the NAPTIP staff members are professional and “disciplined” and adhere strictly to the formal rules and procedures in their work. 274 The identification of “pockets of effectiveness” by scholars in countries with normalised corruption gives hope to policy makers and reformers in these countries that systemic corruption can be defeated by first identifying and supporting those exceptional public organisations which are effective in combating corruption. Karklins contends that “islands of integrity” can “jump-start public confidence in reform” and “trigger the subsequent improvement of other institutions.” Indeed, “small, initial successes” can “signal that corruption can be stopped” and have “a snowball effect” by encouraging actors in other sectors to follow suit.275 A nationwide campaign known as “Integrity Idol” was conducted by citizens in 2014 to identify the most honest civil servant in Nepal. On 11 January 2015, Panchthar District Education Officer, Gyan Mani Nepal, was selected as the “Integrity Idol” from more than 300 civil servants nominated by citizens across Nepal for the award.276 Governments in countries with normalised corruption should take a leaf from Nepal’s “Integrity Idol” campaign to conduct nationwide campaigns to ask their citizens to nominate the most honest or least corrupt public agency. Such campaigns will not only help the governments to identify “anticorruption champions” or “pockets of effectiveness” in combating corruption but also enable them to give national recognition to these exceptional honest public agencies in their countries. 4. Strengthening the sectoral approach

272

She was one of the three Transparency International’s Integrity Awards winners in 2003. See Global Corruption Report 2004 (London: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 75, Box 4.4. 273 A. Irene Pogoson and Michael Roll, “Turning Nigeria’s drug sector around: The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC),” in Roll (ed.), The Politics of Public Sector Performance, p. 104. 274 Antonia T. Simbine with Franca C. Attoh and Abubakar Oladeji, “Taming the menace of human trafficking: Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP),” in Roll (ed.), The Politics of Public Sector Performance, pp. 129-130, 140-141. 275 Karklins, The System made me do it, p. 159. 276 “Panchthar DEO awarded with ‘Integrity Idol’,” Kathmandu Post, January 12, 2015, and Pete Pattisson, “Nepal’s Integrity Idol seeks civil servants with the X factor,” The Guardian, December 11, 2014.

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Spector has recommended the sectoral approach to combat corruption in countries where it is normalised because the best way to control its spread is by analysing “its impact sectorby-sector.”277 As the incidence or vulnerability to normalised corruption varies by sectors in many countries, it makes sense to allocate the limited anti-corruption resources and efforts to those sectors that are more vulnerable to corruption. Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2013 has identified the perceived level of corruption in 12 institutions in 106 countries.278 As shown in Table 2, political parties, the police and the judiciary are the most corrupt institutions in these countries. This means that their policy makers should focus their attention to curb corruption in these sectors. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has promoted the sectoral approach to fighting corruption to provide governance and anti-corruption specialists with “sector snapshots” to “broaden their understanding of corruption and demonstrate additional entry points for addressing it.”279 The USAID has developed this sixstep approach for assessing corruption and integrity in a particular sector in a country: (1) determine corruption vulnerabilities and integrity strengths and weaknesses; (2) evaluate the degree of systemic corruption that is present; (3) use prior experience to create a menu of reform options; (4) choose appropriate reform measures for the problem and feasible within the mission’s resource envelope; (5) take into account strategic considerations; and (6) establish benchmarks for measurement and monitoring.280 Following from Spector’s book on the sectoral approach, Campos and Bhargava of the World Bank have recommended the use of “a road-map approach” to track corruption vulnerabilities at the sector level because of these advantages: (1) it “orients policy makers toward results that a sector or core process is supposed to achieve”; (2) it “provides a more structured and detailed picture of a problem area and the potential points of vulnerabilities specific to that area”; (3) it identifies “key vulnerabilities and thus to remedial measures that could have the greatest impact on combating corruption in a problem area”; and (4) it enables programme implementers to track the incidence of corruption throughout the programme cycle so that they can initiate early action where corruption has occurred. 281 In short, the road-map approach is practical because it focuses on “area-specific problems and solutions and away from big picture discussions of corruption.”282 Policy makers concerned with tackling normalised corruption in their countries should adopt the sectoral approach for two reasons. First, it enables those governments committed to curbing normalised corruption to concentrate their limited anti-corruption resources and efforts in the most vulnerable sectors. The recently published United Nations Report on Responsive and Accountable Public Governance has recommended, inter alia, the 277

strengthening of accountability mechanisms and processes in those “high risk areas that involve large financial flows and are prone to corruption.”283 Second, this pragmatic strategy not only enhances the likelihood of success but should also have positive spill-over effects on combating corruption in other sectors because it demonstrates that normalised corruption can be defeated. 5. Developing strategic partnerships to identify and transfer best practices The Millennium Challenge Corporation has issued the wise reminder that “anti-corruption reform is a marathon, not a sprint.”284 Furthermore, given the enormous and difficult task facing those governments concerned with minimising normalised corruption in their countries, it would be wise for them to develop strategic partnerships with local CSOs and international organisations like the UNDP, World Bank, and Transparency International to identify and transfer best practices in combating corruption. Peter Eigen, the founder of Transparency International, contends that when governments and the private sector fail to curb corruption, environmental destruction, and human rights violations, CSOs have “stepped into the void” in these areas of “failed governance.”285 As many governments have failed to curb corruption in their countries, it is not surprising that many CSOs have emerged in these countries to compensate for their governments’ inadequacies by initiating anti-corruption programmes. CSOs are important for combating corruption because they provide the ACAs with critical information and feedback, a framework of values, an organisational base and skills needed by citizens to act on shared problems, and alternatives to mistreatment by corrupt officials. In other words, strong CSOs reduce the costs of corruption by providing their members with the space and organisational capabilities required to act against corruption.286 With more than 100 national chapters and an international secretariat in Berlin, Transparency International has worked with governments, the private sector, and civil society to minimise corruption in many countries. Similarly, the UNDP and World Bank have provided technical assistance and financial support for anti-corruption programmes around the world for more than two decades. The supportive role of these three international organisations is important, but in the final analysis, the effectiveness of what they can do to help countries requiring their assistance to combat corruption depends mainly on the political will of their political leaders and citizens, and their proper utilisation of the technical assistance and financial support provided. Mills has astutely advised that “rescuing failed states depends on insiders” because “a key aspect to fixing failure is the need for

action by locals to address the causes.”287 This view is shared by Legvold, who argues that the problem of grand corruption in the post-Soviet states can only be solved from within these countries because “little will change until leaders come to power determined to rid their countries of the criminalized state.”288 As there are few success stories in combating corruption, the UNDP, World Bank and Transparency International should collaborate to identify the best practices and “pockets of effectiveness” in corruption control and facilitate their transfer to those countries plagued by normalised corruption by organising annual training workshops for the personnel of their ACAs. For example, the UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Centre in Bangkok sponsored the study tour by the delegations of the ACC in the Maldives and the Commission against Corruption in Timor-Leste to Thimphu from 11-14 July 2011 to learn how the ACC in Bhutan has curbed corruption since its establishment in January 2006. The purpose of this South-South exchange on effective ACAs was to enable the participants from the three ACAs to share their experiences and identify best practices in the investigation of corruption cases, corruption prevention, and public education on corruption, which could be replicated in their respective countries. At the end of the four-day study tour, the Commissioners of the three ACAs unanimously concluded that the South-South exchange was very useful and successful because its objectives were achieved.289 With their combined resources and extensive expertise, the UNDP, World Bank and Transparency International and the local CSOs in the countries concerned, should organise international and regional training workshops for effective ACAs to share and transfer their best practices to less effective ACAs to enhance their capacity in investigating corruption cases and improve their corruption prevention and education programmes. All the five suggestions are important and should be implemented by policy makers who are concerned with minimising normalised corruption in their countries. What should they do if they cannot implement all the five strategies? They should heed the wise advice of the late Samuel Paul, who recommended that the agenda for action to fight corruption in India should “start with easy to do measures,” followed by strengthening existing anticorruption initiatives, and introducing other necessary reforms.290 What should be avoided is “fighting on multiple fronts all at once or a naïve faith in the use of ‘magic bullets’ to tackle corruption” because such efforts are unlikely “to yield lasting results.”291 Sampson has identified the three groups of stakeholders involved in the anticorruption struggle around the world: the heroes, villains, and innocent victims. The heroes are the “integrity warriors” namely, the courageous journalists, lawyers and community leaders “who expose corruption or fight abuse.” The villains are the “corrupt officials or 287

venal government leaders” who accept bribes and also “systematically plunder the treasuries.” The “hapless victims” are the “ordinary citizens confronting unresponsive bureaucrats, the legal clients who must bribe a lawyer or judge, the hospital patients who must pay off a nurse, the students who must bribe their teachers [and] the women and children who are unprotected by corrupt police.”292 In the final analysis, anti-corruption programmes in all countries should strive to enhance the efforts of the heroes, undermine the misdeeds of the villains, and protect and ameliorate the sufferings of the poor citizens, who are the innocent victims of corruption. Indeed, as “those who are corrupt are not simply ‘bad’” but “evil to the core,”293 it is the duty of all honest governments, political leaders, civil servants, and citizens everywhere to prevent corrupt individuals from committing their evil deeds and to punish them impartially if they are found guilty, regardless of their status, position, or political affiliation. To fail to do so, would allow these corrupt individuals, kleptocrats or “thieves of state,”294 to “get away with it” and encourage others to behave corruptly with impunity. In concluding their report on the “deepening corruption crisis” in Burundi in 2012, the members of the International Crisis Group have stressed the need for action by moving beyond words because Burundi’s challenge is no longer about “making ‘good’ institutional arrangements and passing ‘good’ laws but inverting the balance of forces hampering good governance and the fight against corruption.”295 As the same challenge faces the policy makers in those countries with normalised corruption, they must now step up to the plate and demonstrate their political will by implementing appropriate reforms to address the causes of corruption.